What’s Stopping Them? - 9 Reasons Employers and Job Seekers Aren’t Converting on Your Staffing Website

 By Mandy Wittschen, Haley Marketing 

If your staffing and recruiting firm is like most, you invest a ton of money driving employers and job seekers to your website.

Sadly, most of those site visitors (up to 95%!) leave without ever taking a single action:

• They don’t apply for a job.
• They don’t opt into automated job alerts.
• They don’t request talent.
• They don’t fill out a form for salespeople or recruiters to follow up on.
• They don’t refer a friend to you for employment.
• They don’t subscribe to your newsletter or blog RSS feed.
• They don't inquire about staffing services.

All of these things are types of conversion: taking a desired action that drives them further down your sales or recruiting funnel. And every time a site visitor leaves without converting, you lose job candidates and sales leads.

Definition of CRO

CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimization, is the process that helps you increase the number of website visitors who convert (i.e., perform a desired action). The formula for calculating it is straightforward: # of visitors who convert/total # of website visitors x 100.

At a fundamental level, CRO requires an understanding of:

• Drivers: What brings people to your site?
• Hooks: What persuades visitors to act?
• Barriers: What stops people from converting and/or causes them to abandon your site?

Optimizing your site for conversion is all about improving drivers and hooks, while minimizing barriers.

Barriers: What gets in the way of conversion?

People's attention spans are short. If they don't find what they need quickly, and if you don't make it extremely easy for them to take action, they'll leave (can you blame them?).

When it comes to staffing websites, what are the biggest barriers to conversion?

1. Crappy design. If your site looks old, or if the look doesn’t match the words, people won’t trust you.
2. Confusion. The phrase "you confuse, you lose" is especially relevant when it comes to converting website visitors. Make sure your site clearly explains: What does your company do? How do you do it? Can you do it for me? Am I in the right place? What action should I take?
3. Lack of clarity (in the copy, navigation and/or CTAs). Be clear. Be direct. Don’t use jargon your audience won't understand. Make the desired action easy to understand - and to take.
4. Requiring users to jump through too many hoops (e.g., using an online application that takes 25 minutes to complete).
5. Bad copy. Copy that’s too long, too salesy or contains too much hype/empty promises just turns people off.
6. Inability to respond on any device (your website's buttons and forms must look great and perform flawlessly on desktop, mobile, tablet, etc.).
7. No offer. Or no clear offer. Or no compelling offer.
8. Offers that require a high emotional commitment. People resist doing something that feels scary to them. For example, submitting a resume might induce anxiety for some job seekers; they might want to speak with a recruiter first to learn more about the job before committing. Or an employer might not want to schedule a workforce consultation because they’re afraid they’ll look foolish or that they don’t know how to staff their own department.
9. Lack of social proof. Employers and job seekers want to do business with firms they trust – and they trust what others say about you more than what you say yourself. If reviews, testimonials, or logos of companies you work with aren't displayed prominently on your site, you're missing huge opportunities for building trust (and driving conversion).

So...how well is your site converting? What's working well – and what needs to be optimized? If you could use a hand sorting this all out, we have a great offer for you:

Get a Free Staffing Website Performance Review

If you want to attract, convert, and retain more employers and job seekers, let Haley Marketing’s experts perform a free CRO audit. We'll review your messaging. Your calls to action. Your site navigation. And provide practical, specific ideas for improving response. And it's free! Get your website CRO review here: Staffing Website Performance Review