A little background

We’ve a rich history of supporting public sector organisations recruit great people. But we’ve never had the chance to help one develop their careers website. Which is a real shame. Why? Because the opportunities and support that a council can offer it’s employees are huge. But they are just so bad at communicating this. And their careers websites often offer a poor candidate experience.

Which is why were delighted to be approached by the Leicester City Council recruitment team who were determined to change this. To better tell their employer story, to articulate the unique opportunities that are available with the council and change the way that people see the council as an employer. We started the journey with a single statement. Stop thinking like a council and start thinking like an employer of choice. The result was the Leicester City Council careers website.

Our approach

Our project objectives were clear: design, develop and deliver a website that:

  • Brings the City Council’s recruitment proposition to life;
  • Articulates the wide variety of jobs available within the council;
  • Gets the right people straight to the right jobs;
  • Reflects the culture of the council
  • Raises the profile of key information;
  • Continues to evolve with the needs of the council;
  • Integrates seamlessly with their ATS, Lumesse;
  • Is accessible across all devices;
  • Is ready to be indexed by ‘Google for Jobs’.

To deliver a website that will engage a wide audience of job seekers – from social worker to solicitor; traffic manager to traffic enforcement officer; teacher to technologist. A site where all content is available within a single click. One that uses social media as a way of articulating their culture and is distinctly and unmistakably Leicester City Council.

The website 

URL: jobs.leicester.gov.uk
Content management system: Concrete5
Applicant tracking system: Lumesse

Knowing that (on average) 80% of visitors come to a careers website to search for jobs, the website is designed to ensure that the right people find the right jobs. As well as a clear keyword search function, the website offers visitors clear signposts towards their 15 key recruitment areas. Each of these key recruitment areas – from City Services to Social Care, Planning to Human Resources, Apprentices to Lawyers – have their own dedicated section of the website. Covering the importance of that area to the success of the council, the teams that operate within it, testimonials from members of the team and any current vacancies.

It is clear that the council’s people are their very best advocates, so they are placed at the centre of every aspect of the website. They feature on every page, blog or job and in every piece of video. They help deliver key content and offer a real insight into their culture. Finally, we know that 49% of visits to the council’s careers website are likely to be on a mobile device, so we worked closely with their ATS supplier, Lumesse, to offer visitors the opportunity to apply via their smartphone.

Using the Lumesse API

We’d worked with Lumesse before on a project for Refresco, so we knew how good their API was. And what we could achieve. The Lumesse API allowed us to take the job data inputted through the applicant tracking system and pull it through onto the pages of the website. This allowed us to style the job details as we wanted and pull through useful additional information onto the page. The API also allowed us to deliver the application form through the website. This meant that all activity was being picked up and tracked through Google Analytics. Offering Leicester City Council a level of insight that they’d never experienced before.

That Little Agency - Employer Branding - Careers Websites - Leciester City Council Jobs Lumesse Integration Image
That Little Agency | Employer Branding | Our Work | Careers Website | Leicester City Council Tablet
That Little Agency | Employer Branding | Our Work | Careers Websites | Leicester City Council | Job Search on Laptop
That Little Agency | Employer Branding | Our Work | Careers Websites | Leicester City Council | Google for Jobs

Indexing by Google for Jobs 

Another positive outcome of the integration work we did with Lumesse, is that now the URLs of the jobs carried both the Leicester City Council name and a reference to jobs. This meant that we could submit the jobs to Google for indexing. Using their webmaster tools, now called Search Console, we submitted the full website map including jobs directly to Google and within 72 hours we could see that the jobs were being indexed. We have already seen a significant increase in traffic to the jobs through Google.

The impact so far 

To see the impact of the new Leicester City Council careers website, we have compared the performance of the new website against that of the previous incarnation. All data has been taken from Google Analytics, the Lumesse application tracking system and directly from the council’s resourcing team.

148
increase in visitors to the website
128
increase in average time spent on website
36
increase in completed applications

If you’d like to know more about this piece of work, simply email mark@thatlittleagency.co.uk