From the department of quick turnarounds comes NPR’s new career site, one that Lars Schmidt had wanted to redo since he arrived two and a half years ago but ultimately took just a month.
Schmidt is the senior director, talent acquisition and innovation. He has been using social media to create an employer brand that’s … well, more cutting edge than NPR’s old career site was. So, he was anxious for a new site to reflect what he felt NPR was all about.
Like other new sites I’ve been mentioning in recent months, this one is “responsive,” meaning it will reshape itself to fit on a tablet, laptop, mobile phone, and so on. “We wanted it to be media-rich, with a clean aesthetic that is consistent with the look and feel of NPR.org,” he says.
The talent acquisition team interviewed recent tech hires, asking them what drew them to NPR, something that helped in creating the content for the digital page.
The site includes an “applicant pledge” telling applicants that a human, not keyword-searching robot, will review their application. And, applicants will be told where they are in the process, and that they should not give up if they’re not selected. In putting that page together, Schmidt’s team interviewed recruiters, hiring managers, HR professionals, and executives. “Our goal was to present as transparent as possible an outline of what our process looks like,” he says, “and convey it with a tone that’s consistent with our EB messaging.”
Schmidt worked closely with a colleague on the marketing-branding-communications team, and another in the digital media department, but didn’t use any outside agencies. “There was probably over 20 colleagues who contributed input in some form or another,” he says.