A careers section on a company website holds two distinct roles. First of all, the careers section is meant to be an effective and efficient way to recruit candidates. The second role is to educate the candidate by including employment and career information on the webpage. The careers section is a cost-effective and efficient way of building an applicant pool and attracting candidates to apply for the job. Career websites are usually easy to navigate with ways to search through the job listings including criteria such as location, position, skills, and keyword search. Once the desired job is located, some sites (Fairmont’s Jasper Park Lodge) will have an ‘Apply Online’ link where a resume and cover letter can be attached or pasted into an opening, as well as an email address and phone number of the HR department if an applicant has further inquiries. Most websites will have these apply online options, or at least an area to upload your resume to an online application. Frequently, companies may use an online interview as an initial application process (Best Buy) or as a secondary application step (Fairmont). These are automated interviews that produce high reliability to the company, and take a maximum of 30 minutes for a candidate to complete. Typically, candidates who answer favourably to these online interviews will be contacted for phone interviews or in-person interviews.
Despite the significant strengths associated with recruitment through company websites, there are some drawbacks to these career sections. While having the recruitment linked from the company’s website, it may reduce the number of unqualified applicants compared to a job board, but the number of unqualified applicants will still be higher than a recruitment method that must be conducted physically such as filling out an in store application or speaking directly to a manager before handing