Before a candidate even thinks about applying, they’re checking your careers page. According to Glassdoor, over 70% of job seekers visit a company’s careers page before hitting submit. If what they find feels like an afterthought, they move on.
This isn’t just a hiring tool. Your careers page is a chance to tell your story, show what it’s like to work with you, and get the right people excited to join your mission. It helps potential candidates form an idea of your company culture, values, and what working at your organization would be like. It’s essential to clearly convey your mission and values so candidates understand what sets your company apart. The right page doesn’t just fill roles. It brings in the kind of people who make your company better.
In this guide, we’re getting specific. You’ll learn how to:
If your careers page isn’t getting attention from the right candidates, this is where you turn it around. A well-designed careers page should inform potential candidates about your company culture, available opportunities, and role details to help them decide if your organization is the right fit.
Most career pages feel like an obligation. A list of open roles, maybe a paragraph about “culture,” and a generic stock photo of people high-fiving in a conference room. It checks the box but does little else.
That kind of experience doesn’t answer the questions top candidates actually have:
To improve the candidate experience, it’s essential to provide all the necessary information about your company, job listings, application process, and culture. This transparency helps candidates feel informed and engaged from the start.
A great careers page does more than post job openings. It pulls back the curtain. It tells the story of who you are, why your team loves working there, and what someone can expect if they join. It’s a digital handshake that sets the tone before the first conversation.
Let’s break that down.
Here’s where things typically go wrong.
These mistakes can damage your company’s reputation among job seekers, making it harder to attract top talent.
If the first thing someone sees is a wall of job listings, they’re being asked to convert before they even understand what they’re signing up for. Imagine asking someone to marry you before a first date.
Saying “We’re a fun, collaborative team” means nothing without proof. To truly showcase your company's culture, go beyond taglines by including real employee stories, authentic quotes, and visuals like candid team photos or videos that represent daily work life. Even better? Embed a short video where your team shares what they love about working there.
If the UX feels like an afterthought, the impression is that your employee experience probably is too. A clear and modern layout is crucial for making a positive impression on candidates.
You’d never launch a customer-facing landing page without brand strategy, voice, and design standards. So why is your careers page the exception?
A well-built careers page moves candidates through four key stages:
A great careers page conveys the company's values and showcases its unique culture, highlighting what makes it stand out to potential candidates.
Here’s what it should do:
What do you stand for? How do you work? What’s your mission, and how does each role support it? This is where you answer the big “why” behind your company. Clearly communicating your core values is essential, as they define your organizational identity and help candidates understand what drives your team.
Pro tip: Use video clips from your team (Loom works great for lightweight intros) or embed a company mission reel using Wistia or Vimeo.
In the example above, Webflow’s careers page highlights real employees with quotes. It makes the experience feel human, not corporate.
Don’t just say you have a good culture. Show it. Feature employee testimonials, photos from actual events, Slack screenshots, or even day-in-the-life breakdowns. People trust people more than they trust brands. Highlight how team members from different departments may do different things, but they all share common positive experiences at your company.
List your values, but also explain how they show up in daily work. If you value “autonomy,” what does that mean for someone’s first 90 days? Tie values to behavior and expectations. Highlight how these values shape employees' work life, fostering a positive environment where personal well-being and professional growth are supported.
Pro tip: A toggle or accordion-style layout (using tools like Webflow or HubSpot CMS) keeps this clean and digestible without overwhelming the page.
People want to know what happens next. A simple 3- or 4-step visual on your hiring workflow builds confidence. Outlining the recruitment process helps manage candidate expectations by showing each stage, from application to interview and decision. Add timing expectations and who they’ll meet along the way.
Your open positions shouldn’t be buried. Use filters by department, location, or remote status. Organizing job opportunities by position and location makes it easier for candidates to find relevant roles quickly. Tools like Greenhouse, Lever, or Ashby integrate cleanly and allow for dynamic job feeds that match your design.
Top candidates come from everywhere. Your careers page should follow accessibility best practices, including proper contrast ratios, alt text, keyboard navigation, and mobile responsiveness.
Pro tip: Use Accessibe to audit your page for accessibility gaps.
If DEI is important to your company, show how it’s being lived. Share stats (gender/race breakdowns, leadership diversity), benefits (parental leave, flexible hours), and community initiatives. Transparency builds trust.
Great candidates are often passive. They’re researching before they’re applying. Offer them something useful while they browse:
Additionally, provide helpful content, resources, and articles that give deeper insights into your company culture, team experiences, and available roles.
Even a simple “Meet the Team” section with casual bios can make a big difference in converting curiosity into connection.
Most companies treat their careers page like a one-way pitch: “Here’s what we want from you.” But high-performing talent doesn’t just want a job. They want to know what they’re signing up for and who they’re building with.
Before you even consider layout or color palette, you need to get clear on your story as an employer and why it matters. Successful employers use their careers page to communicate their unique value proposition, showcasing what sets them apart to attract top candidates.
This isn’t employer branding fluff. It’s the foundation that guides everything: your content, your structure, and even who hits “Apply.”
Ask yourself this: If someone only read your careers page, would they understand who you are and why your team loves working there?
If the answer is “kind of,” your message isn’t working hard enough.
Think of your employer brand as the “why behind the work.” This includes:
Let’s look at two approaches:
Generic approach: “We’re a fast-paced, innovative company solving hard problems with a great team.”
Strategic approach: “We’re building tools that help small businesses punch above their weight. You’ll work with people who sweat the details, care about results, and have each other’s backs when things get messy.”
One is noise. The other is specific, honest, and appealing to a very real kind of person.
Every great brand tells a transformation story. Your marketing site tells customers, “Here’s who you are now, and here’s who you’ll become with us.” Your careers page should do the same for candidates.
Ask: How will joining your team make someone better?
Will they…
This isn’t about sugarcoating. It’s about being specific. Highlight current team members who have grown, changed roles, or taken on big challenges. Sharing authentic details of daily work life helps candidates envision their own growth and see what their journey could look like at your company. Real transformation stories sell the opportunity far more than recycled perks.
For example, instead of saying “opportunities for growth,” show how your Head of Product started as a support rep. Use photos, quotes, or even a mini case study. Loom videos work well here, too.
A jarring disconnect between your main website and your careers page is a trust killer. If your marketing site feels polished and strategic but your careers page feels thrown together, candidates notice. Your careers page should also clearly communicate your company's services, giving candidates a full picture of what your organization offers and the industries you serve.
Here’s how to keep it all aligned:
If your site copy is bold, human, and witty, your careers page should be too. Don’t suddenly switch to dry HR-speak. Use the same writing style, sentence structure, and pacing.
Pro tip: Use a writing assistant like Grammarly or Writer with your brand guidelines baked in to maintain consistency across teams.
Your careers page should feel like part of the same experience, not a bolt-on. Use your existing color palette, typography, iconography, and photography style. The goal is seamless brand continuity.
Pro tip: Create a modular design system that includes specific components for careers content, like team member cards, benefit callouts, or DEI stats.
If your brand promise to customers is about precision, innovation, or support, you better show how your team lives those values internally too. Don’t silo your brand narrative. Extend it into the employee experience.
For example, if your product site leads with “Built for speed,” your careers page should reflect how your team works fast, ships often, and values momentum.
If you can’t answer these clearly, design won’t fix it.
A high-converting careers page does more than inform. It builds trust, creates excitement, and gives the right people a reason to take action. Understanding and addressing your target audience is crucial. Tailoring your design, messaging, and strategy ensures you attract candidates who are actually a great fit.
Here’s what your page needs to accomplish.
Skip the robotic “Open Roles” header. Your headline is the first impression, and it should speak to the opportunity in front of the candidate.
Great headlines communicate purpose. They speak to ambition, not availability.
Try headlines like...
Pair that with a subhead that highlights what matters most to your candidates. Focus on growth, flexibility, autonomy, or whatever makes your team different. Something like...
“Whether you’re building products, leading teams, or launching ideas, you’ll find the freedom and support to do the best work of your career.”
Really adds extra oomph to the main headline.
Avoid the trap of writing from the company’s point of view. This isn’t the place for internal jargon, buzzwords, or recycled mission statements.
Clear, candidate-focused messaging is essential to attract and inform potential applicants, ensuring they have the information they need to consider your company for their next career move.
Instead, answer the five questions every top candidate is thinking:
Focus your copy on how the company helps people succeed. Talk about the work, the team, the support systems, and the wins. Make it personal.
For example, instead of “We’re a leader in digital automation,” try “You’ll help build tools that save real businesses thousands of hours a year.”.
One of the biggest conversion killers is vague job listings. Great candidates want to know exactly what they’re signing up for.
Be transparent about the role and the future it could lead to.
What to include:
For example, instead of “Own the client relationship,” write “You’ll manage five to seven clients, help scope new work, and collaborate daily with our strategy and design leads.”
Protip: Include a “Meet Your Team” section with short bios or links to LinkedIn profiles to make things more personal.
Compensation matters, but it’s not the whole picture. Your benefits section is a chance to show how you support the whole person, not just the employee.
What to include:
Make this section easy to scan. Use icons or cards to break up content and avoid long walls of text.
Even the best messaging and visuals fall short if the page is hard to navigate. Your careers page should guide candidates intuitively, not frustrate them into bouncing. If someone can’t find what they’re looking for in under 10 seconds, you’ve already lost them.
A well-structured career site improves navigation and candidate engagement, making it easier for job seekers to explore opportunities and apply. Offering job alerts as a feature allows candidates to sign up for notifications about new job openings, further enhancing their engagement and experience with your career site.
Here’s how to structure your page for clarity and momentum.
If you have more than a handful of roles, filters are not optional. Great candidates are busy, and they want to find the opportunities that actually apply to them. Top career sites use advanced filtering options to help candidates quickly narrow down job listings and discover roles that best match their skills and interests.
Essential filters to include:
Also include a keyword search bar for users who know what they want.
Protip: Use platforms like Greenhouse or Lever with embedded job boards that support filtering. If you’re using Webflow, Jetboost is a great way to add custom filters without rebuilding your CMS.
Not every visitor is looking for the same thing. Engineers care about code quality and autonomy. Designers want to know how feedback works. Salespeople want to understand the commission structure and team goals.
Creating subpages for specific departments or job types lets you tailor messaging, content, and tone to the audience that matters most. Some companies even create subpages specifically for their design services, showcasing branding, marketing materials, and digital design work to attract creative talent interested in full-service design support.
What to include:
Example: Shopify’s careers site has dedicated sections for Engineering, Design, and Support, each with its own branding, copy, and content focus.
Most career pages see 60 to 70 percent of traffic come from mobile. If your experience doesn’t translate well to smaller screens, you’re throwing away qualified applicants.
Mobile must-haves:
Protip: Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to catch basic issues. Pair it with BrowserStack or real-device testing to check layouts and functionality.
The application process should feel smooth and intentional, not like a test. A bloated or clunky form will kill momentum, especially for high-value passive candidates. Providing an easy application experience, such as a simple, user-friendly, and multi-device compatible form, reduces friction and encourages more candidates to complete their submissions.
Make sure you offer:
What to avoid:
Protip: Apply for a job on your own site from your phone. If the process feels slow or confusing, fix it before launching your next hiring push.
Most career pages talk about culture. The best ones prove it.
Candidates don’t trust brands by default. They trust people. They want to hear from the humans behind the company, understand what work looks like day to day, and picture themselves in those shoes. That doesn’t happen with a list of values. It happens through stories. Highlighting real employee experiences is key to building trust and authenticity.
Here’s how to build trust through content that feels real.
A quote like “I love the people here” isn’t enough. Great testimonials go beyond surface-level sentiment. They explain what makes the work fulfilling, what challenges employees have faced, and how the company supported them. Testimonials that mention teamwork and collaboration are especially impactful, as they highlight the positive company culture and the value of working together.
Use both formats:
Keep testimonials focused on the individual’s journey. What were they looking for when they joined? What surprised them? How have they grown?
Most companies describe their culture in abstract terms. But candidates want to see the actual experience of working there.
Ways to bring this to life:
This kind of content is especially important for remote or hybrid teams, where work culture can feel more abstract.
For example, create a “Day in the Life” video for each department. Show how a marketer starts their day, who they collaborate with, what tools they use, and how wins are celebrated.
The best way to show your company supports growth is to spotlight people who have lived it. Sharing these growth journeys can inspire potential employees to see themselves at your company and envision their own career path.
Highlight team members who started in one role and grew into something bigger. Don’t just mention the promotion. Tell the story.
What to include:
A statement like...
“Maya joined as a support rep right out of college. Within two years, she moved into a QA role, led our onboarding revamp, and is now mentoring junior engineers.”
Is powerful and demonstrates both growth and an investment in employees.
To take that to the next level, pair stories with photos, timelines, or even mini case studies.
Most career pages are built for humans and completely ignore search engines. The problem is, great candidates often start their journey on Google. If your page doesn’t show up when someone searches “Jobs at [Your Company]” or “Marketing careers in SaaS,” you’re invisible before you even get a chance to pitch.
Publishing an article on your careers page can improve SEO by providing valuable information to candidates and showcasing your company’s values or employee stories.
Search optimization for careers pages isn’t just about ranking. It’s about showing up in the right place, with the right message, when the right person is looking.
Here’s how to get it right.
You don’t need to stuff your page with SEO buzzwords. But you do need to include terms real people are typing into search bars.
Focus on these high-intent keyword types:
Work these naturally into:
Protip: Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to identify the actual keyword volume for your company name, common roles, and industry terms. These tools also help you uncover long-tail variations you might miss.
These are the first things people see in search results. Get them wrong, and you lose clicks before anyone even lands on your site.
Title tag examples:
Keep title tags under 60 characters so they display fully.
Meta description examples:
Stick to 150–160 characters, and make it feel like a compelling intro, not just a summary.
Search engines love structured data. Schema markup helps Google understand your job listings and display them directly in search results through rich snippets.
Use JobPosting schema to include:
This improves visibility on Google Jobs and can drive highly qualified traffic.
Don’t let your visuals become dead weight. Every image and video is an opportunity to add context, improve load times, and support accessibility.
For images:
For videos:
SEO isn’t just for your blog or product pages. Optimizing your careers content means you get seen by more of the people who are already looking for what you offer. The best part? It’s low-effort, high-return work, especially when baked into your publishing process.
Creating an inclusive careers page is not about checking boxes. It's about building real trust and giving every candidate a fair shot. Top talent comes from everywhere. If your careers content doesn’t reflect that, visually, functionally, or in your messaging, you risk losing the very people who could elevate your team.
Here’s how to build a page that welcomes more people in and gives them a reason to stay.
Language influences who applies and who doesn’t. Even small wording choices can signal whether someone belongs or doesn’t.
What to focus on:
Instead of “You’ll thrive in our high-performance culture,” say “You’ll work on a team that values focus, collaboration, and learning from failure.”
If someone can’t read, navigate, or complete your application, they’re gone. Accessibility isn't a "nice to have." It's a baseline expectation for a modern site and a legal requirement in many cases.
Follow core WCAG 2.1 standards, including:
Protip: Audit regularly. Accessibility is not a one-time task. Build it into your QA process when updating content or launching new roles.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion should not be confined to a single page or mission statement. It should be visible throughout your entire careers experience, from visuals to copy to the people candidates meet during interviews.
How to show DEI authentically:
For example, rather than saying “We value diversity,” show how your engineering team sponsors a women-in-tech meetup, or how your design team leads accessibility workshops for other departments.
Protip: Avoid tokenism. A single photo of a diverse team is not enough. Representation should be consistent throughout your site, your hiring process, and your team.
Inclusion is not a side note. It’s a commitment. The more intentional you are about language, design, and storytelling, the more your careers page becomes a mirror of the company you’re building, not just the roles you’re hiring for.
You don’t need to start from scratch to create a great careers page. Plenty of companies are already doing it well. What sets them apart isn’t just good design. It’s alignment. Each of these examples connects brand, team, and opportunity in a way that feels authentic and useful.
Here are five standout examples and what you can apply to your own site.
Canva’s careers page is a natural extension of their product experience. The design is clean, expressive, and easy to navigate. But the real strength is how well their brand values are integrated across the entire experience.
What to take away:
Chipotle’s page prioritizes clarity. They make it obvious what you get as an employee, how you can grow, and how fast you can do it. It speaks directly to frontline workers who want stability and advancement.
What to take away:
Perspective goes beyond job listings. They show what happens after someone joins. From a detailed "first week" breakdown to casual founder videos, everything feels honest and welcoming.
What to take away:
Unilab uses Facebook as a core part of their careers strategy. Their posts feel human and immediate, giving candidates a real sense of what it’s like to be on the team.
What to take away:
Starbucks doesn’t just say they care about equity. They show it with real data, real programs, and a careers site that makes finding the right role easy for everyone.
What to take away:
Each of these companies proves that a careers page should do more than post jobs. It should tell a story, remove barriers, and get the right people excited to apply.
You don’t need to copy their visuals or voice. But study how they communicate clearly, show real people, and focus on what candidates actually care about. Then make it your own.
It’s easy to launch a careers page and forget about it. But if you want to attract the right talent consistently, your page needs to work like a living, evolving product, not a one-time project.
Use this checklist to evaluate whether your careers page is actually doing its job or just taking up space.
Your headline should reflect who you are and what’s in it for them, not just announce “Open Roles.” The subhead should immediately communicate the value of joining your team.
Here's a good example to model off of:
If you're still using "Careers at [Company]," it’s time for an upgrade.
If you have open positions, they should be easy to find, filter, and apply for across all devices.
What to check:
Your team, values, and day-to-day experience should be obvious before someone hits “Apply.”
At a minimum:
PS. Try adding a “Why People Stay” section alongside your open roles. It shifts the focus from getting hired to what it’s like long-term.
Most candidates will visit your careers page from their phone. If it’s slow or broken, they’re gone.
What to test:
Accessibility is essential for compliance and for candidates who rely on assistive tech.
Your page should include:
Your careers page shouldn’t be a dead end. It should connect seamlessly to your hiring infrastructure.
What to confirm:
If you’re not measuring, you’re guessing. Know what content gets viewed, what roles get clicked, and where candidates drop off.
Set up tracking for:
Outdated roles, expired perks, and year-old videos are red flags to high-caliber candidates. A great careers page is always evolving.
Schedule regular reviews to:
Top talent doesn’t just land in your inbox. They make informed, deliberate choices. And for many of them, it all starts with your careers page.
Everything you’ve learned in this guide points to one thing: your careers page is not just a place to list jobs. It’s a place to show who you are, what you stand for, and why the right people should want to join your team.
If your page isn’t clear, engaging, inclusive, and easy to navigate, it’s working against you.
Treat it like your homepage. It's where some of your most important visitors are deciding whether or not to take the next step.
If your careers page isn’t doing the job, we’ll help you build one that does. Let’s talk.
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