Why You Should Be A/B Testing Your Aviation Job Listings
Why You Should Be A/B Testing Your Aviation Job Listings
Posted: 2017-7-11
When it comes down to it, recruiting is a lot like marketing. So if marketers are constantly A/B testing their landing pages or calls-to-action, shouldn't recruiters and job advertisers be doing the same for their job listings?
If you're still hung up on what exactly A/B testing is, Optimizely describes it as
a method of comparing two versions of a web page or app against each other to determine which one performs better. A/B testing uses data & statistics to validate new design changes and improve your conversion rates. A/B testing lets you ask focused questions about those changes and then collects data about the impact of those changes.
Benefits of A/B Testing Job Listings
A/B testing your aviation job listings is great for a number of reasons. At your company, who usually writes the job listings for your open positions? Is it the Recruiter or the Hiring Manager? With A/B testing, you can have each person write their own version of the job listing and see which performs better. After testing multiple versions, your team will have a better understanding of what parts of your job listings resonate with aviation professionals (and which parts turn them off).
What Specifically to A/B Test
Your options here are endless. But we'll give you a few to get started.
- The title of the open job (ex: Senior Aviation Professional vs. Experienced Aviation Professional)
- Where to list the job requirements in the body of the post (ex: at the beginning or at the end)
- Including certain qualifications (ex: five requirements vs. 15?)
- Writing about the company culture
- Requiring a cover letter upon application
How to A/B Test Your Job Listings
Avjobs actually allows you to A/B test your jobs within their platform. So poke around (or call up their customer support and see how they can help) and do some tests to get a hang of it.
If you're posting open jobs to your own website, you can A/B testing things like the page's layout, the font size or color, using different photos or images on the page, method of application and much more. Do applicants drop off after they see that a cover letter is required? Do visitors apply for the job more often when the "Apply" button is green or blue?
Measuring Your Results
To effectively measure results and compare your efforts, it's important to always have a control and a variation. You'll likely want to track things like the number of views, click rates, and number of applicants. You can also follow the applicants throughout the entire hiring process and see what ended up happing to applicants from each test group.
Other Things to A/B Test
Once you get a taste of A/B testing, it's likely you'll become addicted. In addition to testing out variations of job listings, you can also test things like subject lines in your recruiting emails, images you feature on your company culture website, or the number of fields you require applicants to fill out when they apply for the job.
