A little background

Today, more than ever, job seekers are choosing new roles based not on the job, but the employer itself. And whether they believe it is an employer that can help them achieve their personal aspirations and goals.

Knowing this, we set out to develop a careers website that not only manages applications and delivers compelling content, but also builds an emotional connection with the visitor.

One that showcases our position as a global footwear fashion brand yet remains human and open. That articulates our diversity and helps visitors picture themselves thriving here. One that allows candidates to experience what Clarks has to offer even before they walk through our door. And one that, of course, attracts great talent to the business.”

Sharon Lee, Head of Global Talent Acquisition, Clarks

The guiding principles

To deliver a website that will engage a wide audience of retail, supply chain and logistics, marketing and digital, product, wholesale and business support professionals – from Store Manager to Sustainability Office, Online Merchandiser to Operations Manager, Account Manager to Accountant.

To help reposition Clarks as a Somerset-based, traditional retailer of children’s school shoes, to what they are today, a global footwear fashion brand.

  • Brings the Clarks employer proposition to life – Move the World Ahead
  • Gets the right people straight to the right jobs.
  • Integrates seamlessly with two different Applicant Tracking Systems.
  • Is accessible across all devices.
  • Is ready to be indexed by Google, Google for Jobs and Indeed.

A site where all content is available within a single click. One that uses storytelling, imagery, video and social media as a way of articulating our culture. And is distinctly and unmistakably Clarks.

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A prestige look and feel

Whether consciously or not, people are naturally drawn to good design. According to Google, it only takes 50 milliseconds for a visitor to form a first impression of a website. There’s no denying every page of our website is slick in its design, contains highly crafted copy and tailored content that allows the visitor to immerse themselves in the Clarks culture.

We made sure that the minute a visitor lands on the website they are exposed to Clarks’ role as a global footwear fashion brand. Working hard to ‘show’ the visitor – and not ‘tell’ them – why they should come and work for us. We’re sparing in the use of blocks of copy. Brief but focused. Concise but clear. We use photography to help visitors ‘picture’ themselves working for us. And after making a strong first impression, we continue this all the way through the website.

An excellent candidate experience

It’s very difficult to build a website that caters for everyone. After all, someone looking for a retail role will be interested in different things to someone looking for a footwear design one. So instead of thinking of the website as a single entity, we treat it as a collection of landing pages aimed at different key employment groups. The content of which is determined by the page that they’re viewing.

The content management system takes each piece of content, colleague profile, blog and job imported from the HARBOUR ATS and tags it by subject, job family and location. This data is then used to dynamically populate the pages of the website. Matching jobs with blogs, blogs with content, content with profiles.

Currently, there are 13 unique candidate journeys, each designed to talk to, engage and convert specifically skilled individuals into applicants. But these can be added to as and when new teams or areas of expertise are launched.

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Story-driven content

Clarks has a fantastic story to tell. And nobody tells it better than their colleagues. That’s why we’ve placed them at the centre of every aspect of the website. They feature on every page, blog or job and, of course, in every piece of video.

There are films throughout the website. Where our colleagues share their thoughts on the Clarks’ story, purpose, work, teams and benefits. Through colleague-created profile films from all four corners of the globe.

A platform for sharing

The new Clarks careers website offers the resourcing and communications teams a much better platform on which to tell the employer story. And an important part of this is ‘Clarks stories’ blog. A platform to showcase their expertise in footwear design, development and sales, culture and their colleagues’ personal experiences of working at Clarks.

The blog is a central part of a ‘social media for employer branding’ strategy. And in many cases a blog article is the landing page of a new visitor to the Clarks careers website. A visitor who is attracted as much by the Clarks story as by the Clarks brand.

A mobile-first experience

Having worked with the HARBOUR ATS before, we knew the capabilities of the platform. And by pulling three different data feeds from the ATS into the Clarks careers website it became possible to develop a truly  ‘mobile-first’ application process.

Experience (and data) tells us that in many cases the jobs details page will be the only page that the user will visit. So, we’ve enhanced these pages to not only carry the job information drawn from the ATS, but also relevant content around the rewards and benefits specific to that geographical location, profile films from colleagues who work in that team and details around the recruitment process

The application form powered by HARBOUR ATS is designed to be completed on a smartphone. It doesn’t don’t require documents to be uploaded but instead they can import data from information stored on LinkedIn, Google Docs or Dropbox. And the application process itself can be saved on one device and picked up on another if required.

The simplified approach is working for our digital and marketing target groups as since the launch of the new website we have seen a 237% increase in applications.

The results (so far)

Having launched in September 2023 the Clarks careers website is now six months old and we have some fantastic results to talk about. All data covers the six-month period from 1st September 2023 to 29th February 2024, and has been taken from Google Analytics, HARBOUR ATS and directly from the Clarks resourcing team.

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218%

increase in average page views (per month)

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45%

increase in average time spent on website (per month)

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237%

increase in applications (per month)

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74%

increase in hires (per month)

The final word

The biggest success of the new Clarks careers website is its ability to articulate the personality of our business. The culture, the expertise, the diversity and the excitement that I experience every day in this organisation. That’s no mean feat.

The positive impact that it has had on our ability to attract and engage talented people is clear in the numbers we’ve seen. But even more those people who apply for a role here already understand what Clarks is all about. What we do, how we do it and how we add value to our parent brand.

Sharon Lee, Head of Global Talent Acquisition