keep it simple – Job Board Doctor

: simplicity 1Over the past sev­er­al weeks, I’ve pro­posed a few rules for design­ing an effec­tive recruit­ing site or job board: remem­ber that users aren’t ratio­nal, and keep the focus on the can­di­date. Well, now it’s time for the rule (that’s right, rules are plen­ty!).

What is it? Keep your design sim­ple. Note that a sim­ple design works hand in hand with the oth­er two rules: a sim­ple design will make it eas­i­er for a user to find what they need, even if they make irra­tional choic­es; and a sim­ple design will – by def­i­n­i­tion – keep the focus on the can­di­date.

Con­sid­er the largest job board in the world – Indeed. Their design is very sim­ple – and has remained so through­out the years. They haven’t been tempt­ed by the sin­gle page designs, or the ‘mov­ing pic­ture’ designs, or any of the oth­er fads that have affect­ed site design over the past decade. Instead, their sim­plic­i­ty has made it easy for the can­di­date to find job list­ings. Pos­si­bly the biggest change (at least in my mem­o­ry) was the ‘search refine­ment’ fea­ture, which appears on the left side of the after an ini­tial search. Is it com­plex? No. Is it dis­tract­ing? No. Is it easy to use? Yes.

You could argue that Indeed has its head in the sand when it comes to design. Maybe they do – but again…they’re the biggest job board in the world. Their only real rival in that regard (at this point) is – which has gone the oppo­site way in of design. LinkedIn is always fid­dling with their design – try­ing to fig­ure out how to add yet anoth­er ‘fea­ture’ with­out drag­ging down the entire site edi­fice. You can argue that LinkedIn is try­ing to do a lot more on their site than Indeed is – and you would be right. But from a can­di­date per­spec­tive, I would pick Indeed over LinkedIn, every time. It’s just eas­i­er to use.

I’m not sug­gest­ing that your design should copy Indeed’s (although many have) – but I do rec­om­mend that your design always focus on sim­plic­i­ty. To do this, you must under­stand what the pur­pose of your site actu­al­ly is – and for most recruit­ing sites and job boards, that pur­pose is con­nect­ing a can­di­date with a job. Orga­nize the site to sup­port this pur­pose. Make this pur­pose the test of any site design change. 

If you do that, you’ll be fine. And your can­di­dates will thank you!

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