A little background

Manchester Metropolitan University is the sixth-largest university in the United Kingdom by enrolment.  They asked us to support them in developing a careers website that would better tell their employer story. The story of a highly successful university, offering fantastic opportunities for both academics and those working in professional support roles.

So the new website has been designed not only to be interesting and informative, but to have a real, lasting impact on the job seeker. To position them as an employer of choice to a wide range of research, lecturers, professors and business support professionals. The result is the Manchester Metropolitan University careers website.

Our approach

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

  • Brings the Manchester Metropolitan University recruitment proposition to life;
  • Gets the right people straight to the right jobs;
  • Reflects the culture of the University;
  • Raises the profile of key information;
  • Is social, engaging and continuously updated;
  • Continues to evolve with the needs of the business;
  • 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 lecturers to librarians; professors to marketeers; researchers through to facilities managers. 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 Manchester Metropolitan University.

The website

URL: https://manmetjobs.mmu.ac.uk/jobs/
Content management system: Azure
Applicant tracking system: eArcu

Knowing that (on average) 80% of visitors come to a careers website to search for jobs, the website places the search function front and centre. This ensures that the right people quickly find the right jobs. Not only that, the website uses the visitor’s IP address (desktop) or GPS location (tablet and smartphone) to deliver the visitor jobs that are close by.

As well as jobs, the search results direct the visitor towards content that it thinks will be of interest to them. Such as detailed information on the business area and office they would be based in, Twitter updates, blog stories and whether they are LinkedIn with anyone currently working at the University.

It is clear that the University’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. And supporting this, the site integrates seamlessly with their social media platforms which help articulate the day-to-day activities of Manchester Metropolitan University in real time.

The website is designed to be incredibly visible to the search engines with all pages developed to be successfully indexed. And that includes the jobs pages which have been programmed specifically to be indexed by ‘Google for Jobs’.

Finally, we know that 45% of visits to the Manchester Metropolitan University careers website are on a mobile device, so we worked closely with their ATS supplier, eArcu, to offer visitors the opportunity to apply via their smartphone.

Using a chatbot

Those talented people over at eArcu have developed a chatbot to help potential candidates with their questions around the University, the roles available, Manchester itself and any hints, tips or advice on making an application. It offers job seekers another way of interacting with the Manchester Metropolitan University recruitment team and is phenomenally popular.

That Little Agency | Employer Branding Agency | Our Work | Careers Website | Manchester Metropolitan University | Chatbot Image
That Little Agency | Employer Branding Agency | Our Work | Careers Website | Manchester Metroplitan University Smartphone Image
That Little Agency | Employer Branding Agency | Our Work | Careers Website | Manchester Metropolitan University Tablet Portrait Image

The impact so far

To see the impact of the new Manchester Metropolitan University 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 eArcu application tracking system and directly from their recruitment 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