The Which? story
The challenge
Which? is a UK-based non-profit focused on improving outcomes for consumers. With a broad mission ranging from consumer rights advocacy to user testing, product reviews, and advice, the organisation exists to make things simpler, fairer, and safer for consumers.
Like many organisations, Which? has felt the talent market tighten, and seen a shift in jobseeker behaviour. Looking at it through a consumer lens, Which’s Head of Resourcing, Julian Harris, noticed a parallel between consumer and jobseeker behaviour:
“Candidates trust authentic content more than ever and will act more like consumers. Inspiration can be taken from looking at the consumer market: how people are looking at buying goods and services. How can hiring teams replicate that?”
Which? acts as an arbiter of quality for UK products and services, but their existing careers site was not offering their candidates a quality recruitment experience. With jobseekers becoming increasingly discerning, the team at Which knew they needed to analyse their employer brand: starting with the careers site.
The focus
To win talent in a candidate’s market, they needed to create a ‘sticky’, engaging experience and transform their careers site into an inviting virtual shopfront. To drive applications, they needed to showcase their EVP, bring their employer brand to life, and provide a personalised experience for site visitors.
Julian and the team saw an opportunity to use the careers site as a central hub: a place to drive traffic, optimised to convert visitors into applicants. The goal was to reduce time to hire, and drive ROI through reduced reliance on agency spend. But, they had to be strategic —they weren’t looking for a one-off burst of activity. They wanted a long-term application-generating machine to help them build a thriving talent community —for present and future opportunities.
Candidate experience was a key focus: the team at Which? wanted to provide enriching content to jobseekers browsing the site. By providing an authentic view into life at the company, they could give jobseekers and potential applicants the information they needed to make an informed choice about whether or not to apply.
“The candidate market will always lead the careers site. The more information that candidates have access to, the higher the return in terms of self-selection.”
To ensure the team could pivot and adapt to market changes and candidate needs, Which? needed an agile solution —one that could grow and change in-step.
The solution
Which? partnered with Clinch to implement Recruitment Marketing and Employee Connections to build a careers site designed to drive applications. With the self-service careers site and CMS, they were able to take total control of their EVP, and showcase an authentic employer brand to candidates.
With the drag-and-drop builder, Julian and the team were able to fast-track content updates and make changes on-the-fly —the nimble solution they were searching for.
Using Employee Connections, the team at Which? have opened up a window into real life at the company. With employees nominated as ‘Insiders’, Which? now has a platform to share stories, blogs and videos — as well as host live Q&A sessions between site visitors and Insiders. Relevant stories and discussions can be pinned on job descriptions, to capture interest and bring the careers site to life.
“Who better to recommend Which? as a place to work than the people who already work here? This authentic communication in a real-time environment is invaluable to help candidates with decision-making. Talking to a real employee —perhaps a future colleague — is more impactful than a glossy marketing video.”
This employee-generated content has also had a huge impact on employer brand —specifically, providing a platform to highlight the Which? approach to DE&I. It provides a way for the organisation to show it “walks the walk”.
“We’ve got members of our LGBTQ community who are Insiders. It creates a space for people in those communities to ask questions and get authentic, valuable answers. We’ve had jobseekers ask how our culture supports those who are neurodivergent —all questions that can be answered by real people who have experience being supported here at Which?”
Clinch’s powerful analytics give Julian and the team access to actionable data points. They can see where their visitors are coming from, and what channels are performing the best. Seamlessly integrating with their eArcu ATS, they can monitor and optimise the hiring process, end-to-end —driving down hiring costs and time-to-fill. Content heat mapping allows the team to pinpoint exactly what content on the careers site is drawing interest—and identify areas for improvement.
“We can see in real-time, what areas of our careers site seem to be the most engaging for prospective jobseekers. We can also see where perhaps people aren’t looking —so we can focus on creating different more engaging content to change this out.”
Using Clinch Recruitment Marketing and Employee Connections, Which? has:
- Improved website conversion rates by 212%
- Increased page views per visit by 20%
- Seen a 16% increase in returning careers site traffic
Want to turn your careers site into an application-generating machine? Get a free careers site audit with a Clinch Recruitment Marketing Specialist.
