During our benchmarks for our clients, we often look at career pages of companies in different industries.

Alas, all too often, we make the worrying observation that some companies completely neglect this part of their site, despite the high stakes.

 Here are 5 counterexamples of French company career pages, revealing practices that should absolutely be avoided.

As a preamble, we would like to make it clear that this is not meant to cast aspersions on the companies we list.

We could have highlighted the careers pages of dozens of other companies.

The common thread among these five cases is that they are relatively large companies with real business success.

This article aims to show the abysmal gap that exists between the growth of some companies and their considerable lag in digital recruitment.

Altrad - A lack of readability and involvement

Created in 1985 by Mohed Altrad and Richard Alcock, the Altrad Group is a global player in the production and distribution of construction equipment.

The Altrad Group has annual sales of 1.9 billion euros.

Analysis of the problem

- Altrad's career page does not provide a clear picture of job opportunities within a group that nevertheless employs 17,000 people. 

- The content is very short and does not present any salient features of the company. The discourse on values is more evoked than explained.

- The presence of both the company's values and the values of the company are very limited.

- The presence of two calls-to-action from partner sites show the low involvement of the group in recruiting their future talent.

- "Support" jobs are not mentioned. To leave an unsolicited application, you have to click on a link that is not very visible and leads to a form that is restrictive to fill out.

- The page is not optimized for mobile.

Conclusion

A group of international dimension like Altrad should have a dedicated career site, with a real recruitment strategy based on adapted content.  

Caudalie - A design unsuited to the employer brand image

Cadaulie is a cosmetics company specializing in vinotherapy. It then diversified into spas and vinotherapy-based stays.

Cadaulie realizes a turnover of 120 million euros.

Analysis of the problem

- The sloppy design of the Caudalie career page is the opposite of the commercial page, which is very neat on the contrary. The impact of this mismatch in terms of employer-brand image is potentially disastrous. As an example, the logo image file is missing, indicating that the page appears to be abandoned.

- The order of presentation of the posts follows no logic. It suggests that each function is equally important.

- The main image conveys a negative message. The individuals fade into the background in favor of the group itself surrounded by a dark veil. This is not very engaging. The alternative text of this image is "bg-f10" which cannot be understood by a visually impaired internet user.

- The page is not optimized for mobile 

Conclusion

Caudalie should work as much on its employer brand as its business brand by working its career page from the ground up.

Medicrea - A complete lack of referencing

Medicrea  produces the best implants and instruments for spine surgery.  The company is considering an initial public offering on Nasdaq, in the second half of 2017.

Medicrea reports revenues of €25 million.

Analysis of the problem

- The career page (www.medicrea.com/la-societe/recrutement/) is redirected to the home page for no reason. Therefore, it cannot be accessed by a direct search on search engines.

- The only link on the career page is in the footer. No links are present in the main navigation.

- Job postings are published on unreferenced pdf's such as this International Product Manager position. The job description on Medicrea's page is not accessible via search engines. It can only be found on the Snitem site.

Conclusion

By not working on its SEO, Medicrea makes it almost impossible for a candidate to find opportunities. 

Moulinvest - An inadequate simple contact form

Moulinvest is a company specializing in the manufacture and marketing of wood products. It is also developing activities in the production of electricity by cogeneration from biomass, and the production of wood pellets for heating communities and individuals.

Moulinvest received revenues of 52 million euros.

Analysis of the problem

- No text on the career page. Nothing is stated about the group and the opportunities it offers.

- The contact form is particularly off-putting. Why ask to fill out a "date" field by hand when it can be easily automated.

Conclusion

It's hard to get more minimalist than Moulinvest's career page! A simple form is of course not enough to attract quality candidates. 

Nutriset - A page organization that is difficult to understand

Nutriset is a company that produces several lines of food solutions to malnutrition problems. It is the world's number one in the treatment of childhood malnutrition.

Nutriset reports revenues of €110 million.

Analysis of the problem

- The top of the page is hard to understand. It shows 3 calls-to-action floating around. Two are dedicated to recruitment and a third to... a request for quote! This last CTA leads to a page with a contact form which can be even more confusing.

- There is no text, no images to introduce the group and the opportunities it offers.

- The ads are not categorized which makes it very difficult to find a particular position.

- The page is not optimized for mobile 

Conclusion

The Nutriset career page returns a certain cluttered impression. A candidate of value might hesitate to apply.

If you want to learn the fundamentals of optimizing a web page, we invite you to download our free white paper "24 tips for generating leads".