Best company careers blogs (and why your career site needs one)
The best company careers blogs not only build candidate engagement and drive traffic. They also convert passive seekers into candidates, talent community subscribers, fans of your employer brand, or all of the above. Ultimately, a careers blog is a great channel to give culture clarity through employee stories. Here’s how the best company career site blogs are doing it.
Yes, you definitely need a careers blog.
A “Life at” blog gives candidates unlimited ways to learn more about the employee experience at your company. Unlike other focused sub-sections of your career site, a careers blog has no specific topic perimeters. Blog posts can be about values, positions, benefits, diversity and inclusion … any topic that gives insight into life at your company. And, you can easily link within your posts to other related content. You can organize blog posts into categories. You’ll increase engagement by giving your readers content they find useful and interesting, and by making it easier for them to navigate to other related pages or discover new information.
Stories fuel the best company careers blogs
The only requirement of your blog content is that it be fueled by employee stories. Stories from employees about what it’s like to work at a company make the content compelling to candidates. Significantly, stories that are written in blog form are the easiest and fastest content to take live.
Of course, the stories on your blog are incredible content to be repurposed in your social feeds, for employee engagement, and all your other channels.
The SEO power of a careers blog
Candidates are searching for whether or not they will fit in with the team. They want to know if company values align with theirs, and what a day in the life will look like in a specific job. So, they turn to Google. The vast majority of your candidates are searching online — 75 percent of candidates seek out information about your company before applying, and 52 percent of candidates come to your career site for that info.
Importantly, those online searches can provide you with new, additional streams of potential candidates that might not find you otherwise. A careers blog gives you a search engine optimization (SEO) superboost. Quite simply, a blog’s SEO power makes it easier and more likely for candidates to find you when searching. And, a blog provides you with an infinite number of search terms for which your company can capture candidates’ attention.
What we can learn from the best company careers blogs
Of course, developing a blog for your career site may feel like a daunting task for an already-busy recruitment marketer. Or, your career site may have a blog or blogging functionality, but you need ideas. The good news is that if you base your blog posts on employee stories, engaging content comes easily. Each blog post can provide a story of something important to your employees or your recruitment goals. As long as each post tells a story, this information will grab potential candidate interest.
To get you inspired, we’ve rounded up some of the best company careers blogs, all of which feature great employee stories. For each company featured, we give you story topic suggestions for your own blog. Remember, not only are these stories compelling, but they have a marketing purpose: blogs are pushing these companies to the top of candidates’ online searches.
Life at Capital One Blog: Stories of integrating work and life
Life at Capital One proves that your career blog can feature any topic focused on team member experiences. The blog has team member stories of diversity and inclusion, women in tech leadership, military spouses receiving support at work, employee volunteer opportunities, and more. But it excels particularly in its stories that share how team members integrate their careers with their lives and find balance.
Example: A Leader’s Journey to Connect Women in Tech
Sodexo Careers Blog: Stories of employee life during the covid crisis
The Sodexo team was one of the first companies to start a careers blog. Even after 12 years, it’s still the top source for internal candidates and the second-greatest source of external candidates. Sodexo’s careers blog has always focused their content on stories, such as stories of team member achievements, “day in the life” looks at positions and other insights into culture. And in 2020, the blog added employee experiences in the covid-19 pandemic. These relatable and interesting stories give insight into how Sodexo has cared for its employees, and that information is extremely relevant and valuable to candidates now.
Example: Creatively navigating the frontlines during covid-19
Facebook Careers Blog: Stories of career paths
Facebook’s careers blog is packed with a wealth of resources that are organized by career, topic, and region. But what really stands out for us are the stories that give specific insights into Facebook’s many teams and how team members are creating their individualized career paths. These stories of specific experiences do triple-duty: they show candidates the Facebook culture overall, give clarity to team culture, and also back-up company assertions about their professional growth opportunities.
Example: One engineer’s career path to management
Accenture Careers Blog: Stories of diversity and inclusion
Stories of how your company is creating and fostering an inclusive culture are very important to your candidates. When you pair your employees’ stories with your company statements about your commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, you immediately give proof to your promises. Accenture’s careers blog has a diversity and inclusion category with stories from team members about accessibility for the differently abled, LGBTQIA+ pride, anti-racism, cross-cultural team learning and more.
Example: Living authentically, going beyond the binary
Life at Booz Allen: Stories of roles and personal purpose
If you’re going to browse the Booz Allen career blog, go make yourself a cup of coffee first … or maybe a whole pot. Because the People Profile blog section alone will draw you in for hours. The stories focusing on individual team members are so interesting! But, Booz Allen’s blog also makes it easy for candidates to search for posts about specific roles, and how people in those roles connect their personal purpose to organizational values.
Example: Jessica Chapman’s mission to make a difference
Hubspot Careers Blog: Stories of what’s working for remote employees
As content creation leaders and a company known for prioritizing culture, it’s not surprising that Hubspot’s careers blog is updated almost daily and is robust with stories. Since March 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic necessitated that so many of the world’s content creators now work from their homes, a great deal of those stories focus on remote work and distributed team culture. These stories share what Hubspot team members are finding helpful or interesting while working remotely, and provide detailed information for candidates seeking a look at their right-now culture.
Example: What’s it really like starting a new job remotely? 5 new hires tell all
We Are Cisco Blog: Stories of early career mobility
Young candidates and potential interns are navigating so many unknowns, but Cisco’s careers blog provides them with answers. Their blog has up to three stories a week shedding light on the early career employee, new hire, and intern experience. The storytellers share particulars about how their managers assisted them and how their work at Cisco led to the next stage in their careers. Internal mobility stories abound and show candidates how a position here can be the first step in a long, fulfilling career at the company.
Example: Two previous Cisco employees are leading the way for others
Life at Google Blog: Stories of the new world of work
The blog’s tagline is “Go behind the scenes and learn about life at Google,” and a peek backstage is the unifying theme for its stories. Recently, the stories have been showing what is new and possible for virtual employees. For candidates who are looking to see how Google leads the way in both innovation and distributed team culture, these stories will provide critical detail. And, these stories give more clarity about the new world of work than is possible in job descriptions or static career site content.
Example: Google internships go virtual
Want to learn the SEO, format and content essentials of top-performing careers blogs? Download our exclusive one-page guide, Best Practices for Your Careers Blog.
