Real Estate Career Page

Positioning Yourself On The Web

My friend Carol Johnson, recruiting expert extraordinare, gives 12 Questions to Ask Yourself When Positioning Your Company to Recruit on the Web:

1. How are the strategic competitive differences in your products and services explained to consumers, agents, and pre-license candidates on your website?
2.  Are your graphics, agent pages, photos, personal pages, navigation, and email branding sending a stronger or weaker message than your top three competitors?
3. What recruiting and individual agent productivity goals do you expect to achieve from your website over the next year?
4. Do you include agent lead generation and web-based income goals in your agent business plans and quarterly reviews? 
5. How do you position your agents--at each level of productivity--to gain a competitive advantage from your website? 
6. Does your website have schedules and career-related information that prospective agents can download? 
7. What security features does your website offer your company, office, agents, and clients? 
8. What can you offer on your site that competitors would have difficulty duplicating?
9. Do you know how to locate and evaluate the competitive weaknesses both you and your competitors display on your websites? (Some can be strategic disasters.)
10. How can sales and career development strengths be maximized on your website?
11. How can your competitors use your website to recruit your agents? 
12. Do you know why it’s critical to tour your company website and your competitors' sites on a regular basis, and ask these and more strategic questions?

Using Your Website To Recruit

Maintaining an updated, visually attractive, and informative website is essential for real estate companies interested in recruiting. Your company website is not only a great way to market your company to buyers and sellers, but it is also one of the first places potential recruits will check to learn more about your company. Your website is a fairly inexpensive, yet effective, tool for recruiting.

Potential recruits look to the company website to gather information before they choose to fill out a form or call the broker. They look for information on what tools will be provided to them, management involvement, training courses, and more.  It is especially important to show the company’s human side.

Most companies are not using their websites to its fullest advantage.  The company website is a great recruitment tool. Like a billboard, you can put whatever you want on your site. When compared to advertisements that cost so much per word, a website is quite inexpensive. A website should not just be for buyers and sellers, but for potential agents as well.

Make it a priority. Maintaining an updated and informative website should be a priority for every office. Consider that your website is often the first impression a candidate or client will have of your company. If designed correctly, a website can provide good insight about your company's business philosophy, culture, and services. Also, all online and print advertising should direct people to your website. You will not only save money with your more concise advertisement, you will also lure prospective recruits to find out more about your company as a whole.

Tips:
• Compare your competition’s websites.  Note likes and dislikes.
• Perform Google/Yahoo/Bing searches on career terms.  What sites are coming up?  Make notes.
• Optimize your own website to attract career leads.  Pick good keywords and put them throughout your site.  Include a career tag line on every page.
• Have career content on your site. (FAQ section, links, testimonials, forms, etc.)
• Advertise your career page URL in all advertising: yourcompany.com/career.htm.
• Maintain your website!  Add fresh content and tweak your keywords.  Check your logs.

Do Potential Recruits Use The Internet To Find A Job?

You can use Google's Keyword tool to find the right keywords to use when adding content to your website.  Using the right keywords can make all the difference in the amount and quality of the visitors you receive to view your website, specifically your career page. To find this tool click here.  Follow the instructions on the page.  The below is a list of terms that were searched for in the month of January 2011:

Recruiters Website Evaluation

Recruiter's Website Evaluation
Take A Quick Quiz
 
What You Don't Know About Websites
Can Cost You More than the Price of a
Good One... in Sales and Recruits Carol Johnson
President.
Recruiting Network.
 Carol Johnson
www.recruitingpipeline.com 
  
 

Take this quick quiz and start the process of evaluating your firm's recruiting website and those of your competitors. Remember: perception and navigation are everything!

Every recruiter and sales agent should develop dialogue explaining the benefits of their website.  They should know how it compares to their competitors in looks, feel, and ease of use by consumers and agents.

Well-developed websites are your 24-hour office.  It's your chance to "Click" with consumers, agents, and career prospects. 
    
1.  Name the company in your market that has the best recruiting site for these four reasons:

- Benefits to consumers
- Benefits to agents
- Best career site
- Overall look, feel, and navigation
 
2.  What company has the best career information?

- How to get a license
- Real Estate schools
- Career event schedule
- Costs procedures
- Personal message from owner or recruiter
- Photos of offices and managers
- Articles about how to get started
- Forms, applications, and links
 
3.  How many competing sites have a direct link to the state license exam site, pre-license schools, or testing sites. 

 
4.  What company has the largest list of specialties and demographic niches? 

 
5.  What site explains professional designations, such as GRI, CRS, CRB, and ABR?

 
6.  Which competitors post their training schedule on their website?

 
7.  Which company provides the best information about their leadership and management team?

 
8.  What company has the least/most agents' photos?  Are agents connected to the Internet from the company site by email and personal website?

 
9.  If I needed a webpage translated or an agent who speaks Spanish, Japanese, or Korean, where would I look? 
 
10.  What companies certify agent technology skills?