I'm encouraging you to complain about our careers site. This is not a trick.
I'm helping out our HR IT team. They are developing our new careers sites (for US and international) and I meet with them every so often to talk about specs. We sat together this morning to talk about search and I mentioned that I had been contacted in the past by blog readers that had issues with our career site. And we agreed that it would be a good idea to solicit feedback directly. Oh yeah, we are all about the feedback here.
So here is what I am asking you:
1) What issues, if any, have you had on our career site?
2) What, if any, additional content would you be looking for?
3) Are there things that you have seen on other company career sites that you think we should do as well?
4) Are there new technologies or features that we should add that you have not seen on career sites before (for example, the application of RSS technology)
I am encouraging you to complain and say "I wish..." and to be as specific as possible.
Roy told me he will jump on the thread and talk to you guys himself. He may be able to provide some answers to questions and we are hoping to get some good insight into what could make our next rev of the career site better than ever. It's OK if you comment includes the word "suck" (although I will say that ours is better than most). We want to know about it so we can fix it.
Comments
Anonymous
June 04, 2008
Did you mean this URL? http://www.microsoft.com/careers/ Post the comments/wishes here? All the best, MarkAnonymous
June 04, 2008
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June 04, 2008
It sure would be handy to be able to put together an RSS feed of a certain search.Anonymous
June 04, 2008
Hi, I like to see: add RSS feeds for job offerings based on location and/or job category does microsoft offer location independent offerings (by this I think about home offices (eg. Europe) away from the actuall location (eg. USA)). if yes, you should add such a location type Cheers HarryAnonymous
June 04, 2008
I've been complaining about the buggy Careers site for well over a year (and have the emails to prove it!). For one thing, when you do a search and get a good-sized resultset of reqs, start clicking on the reqs to see the details..., then go back to that list of job matches; it will eventually (if not immediately) vanish.Anonymous
June 04, 2008
RSS, check! egcarter - keep it coming.Anonymous
June 04, 2008
I have had the same issue as egcarter, navigating multiple results is extremely difficult. It is really easy to hit back or click off from a result in a way that removes your search. Also, if you go all the way through a job listing and apply, it is difficult if not impossible to get back to your custom search. You could hold this search in the user’s session, or save it in a "recent searches" field that is always visible (maybe in on the side or bottom of the screen). Outside of search I have always wished there was more information about the offices themselves. Several of the offices are not listed. I think it would be nice to see a good set of information about the place where i could work. Most Microsoft campuses are beautiful and impressive, I think some pictures and details might encourage some people to consider a location (heck look at that Fargo office, it is cool looking). Some additional information about the surrounding areas could help prospects as well as recent hires. I have also noticed that several specific jobs do not have details listed. Many groups are not represented in the group’s information page. More detail about the various groups and Microsoft and more details about the specific jobs available would be great. Some areas of the company and positions are completely absent from the position listings (though show up in searches), Leaving little detail on specific positions until you receive a job description from a recruiter if you are selected for interview. That’s a little late to the game in my opinion. In general, I agree that your careers website is one of the best out there. As someone who was recently doing their job search, I was really impressed by its design and ease of use. A little more content and it would be perfect.Anonymous
June 04, 2008
Do you really want to know what I think? LOLAnonymous
June 04, 2008
I second egcarter's issue... it was rather annoying having to restart your search when this happenedAnonymous
June 05, 2008
I wish to get a job off the Microsoft careers site when I apply. (Hehehe... Just kidding). In all honesty, there are way too many choices to filter by, and I fear jobs people might be looking for will be missed. So pair down the type of jobs. I know thats hard given there are so many functions at Microsoft. One idea might be to a featured job or an immediate needs job area. Where a few jobs are highlighted for immediate needs. I like having the testimonial attached to a specific job so you get to learn about people in that job and why they love it. Also filter it in such a way that jobs from 2007 dissapear. They might be old and filled and outdated...Anonymous
June 05, 2008
As long as we are on wishful thinking, how about being able to put in your qualifications and skill sets and get a response back on where you can be a good fit. I say that just because there seem to be a lot of different departments/product teams within microsoft.Anonymous
June 05, 2008
Another suggestion: Age out, or repost, jobs that have been there for a long time (more than say 4 months). I've seen jobs on the careers site where the posting date is well over 1 year (even approaching 2 years) old. Job's that old don't give you a lot of confidence in getting a response when submitting your resume to a database...Anonymous
June 05, 2008
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June 05, 2008
Once you get past the first few pages the visual design is unfriendly. It looks exactly what it is-an interior website for a mega corporation. There's no way around the amount of information. I'd hire these guys to rework it. http://www.37signals.com/Anonymous
June 05, 2008
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June 05, 2008
This is valuable feedback, you guys. Thanks so much and keep it coming!Anonymous
June 05, 2008
Do we get Microsoft T-shirts for helping out? :)Anonymous
June 05, 2008
Concerning the job req "aging" issue, if you have applied to a specific req and it's filled, you can easily find out by clicking on your "Job Cart", then "View Resume Submissions". The jobs that are either filled or gone for whatever reason will show a status of "Not Available" in red. As for really old reqs that are still there; I'm sure that a more proactive effort is needed to remove the ones that have vanished (lost headcount, budget issues, etc.), but there are definitely old ones that are really still "available." I've been contacted for some that have been posted for longer than 6-7 months before. The possibility of storing multiple resumes in the system and choosing the appropriate one to submit with an application is of prime importance. I have what seems to be "eleventy-five" (sic) different resumes for different roles. No One-Trick Pony here!Anonymous
June 06, 2008
There are two many ways to filter the JDs. Standardize on a set amount so a user doesn't have to guess what a specific job title or job category to pick. Add an advanced search to the main screen so a user can modify the search based on their own criteria. I agree it is very frustrating that you can be looking at multiple jobs and all of a sudden when you hit the back button the whole search session disappears. KenAnonymous
June 12, 2008
1- problems: many times when viewing a large set of results, the site seems to loose the search criteria and you would have to start al over. Very frustrating at times. 2- requests: I would like to get customize search experience. It will be nice to see a list of already viewed postings, applied to with categories, and some sort of favourits so we can save jobs for later vieweing/applyingAnonymous
June 18, 2008
I would store all the resumes in a single database, so, this way we don't need to build it again for any international opportunity.Anonymous
June 29, 2008
This is a great idea what you are doing - I am currently working for a web 2.0 company and we are trying to get feedback on our site as well. It's so helpful when people complain!