The career page is marketing, not HR
Table of contents 7 sections
- 01Why the career page sits in the wrong house
- 02How HR thinks career pages — completeness, mandatory information, safety
- 03How marketing thinks career pages — target group, language, conversion
- 04Three differences in practice
- 05What you concretely change with the reframe
- 06When HR has a say — how you bring both worlds together
- 07What you can do today
Why the career page sits in the wrong house
In most businesses the career page belongs to the HR area. The HR team maintains it, the HR team formulates the job ads, the HR team decides what belongs in it and what comes out. That seems logical – after all, it is about personnel topics. And that is exactly the problem in most cases.
A career page is not primarily a personnel document. It is an acquisition page. Its task is not to inform completely, but to move someone to apply. This task follows different rules than maintaining internal structures. It follows marketing rules: understand the target group, speak their language, a clear call to action at the end.
Anyone who understands this has a different career page. Not because HR does bad work, but because HR thinking and marketing thinking are two different disciplines, with different success criteria. The career page belongs in the second – with HR as content provider, not as the main responsible party.
Stefan, a plumbing and heating contractor in Carinthia with 14 employees, has never had an HR department. He does his career page himself. Precisely for that reason it has a marketing logic, without him calling it that – he thinks from the applicant's perspective from the start. Thomas, the managing director of a technical mid-market business with an internal HR position, only noticed where the difference lies when he held the career pages of both worlds side by side.
How HR thinks career pages — completeness, mandatory information, safety
HR is structuring. That is the discipline that does the administration of personnel, keeps contracts clean, ensures compliance, covers legal requirements. Transferred to a career page, this way of thinking translates into three reflexes.
First, completeness. A job ad has a task area, a requirements part, a we-offer part, an application close. All four must be in there, complete, equally weighted. The result is texts that list everything and highlight nothing.
Second, mandatory information. "(m/f/d)" after every title, the addition "applications from people with disabilities will be given preferential consideration" at the end, the reference to the collective agreement, the mandatory location statement. All formally correct, all invisible in content – because it is everywhere and stands out nowhere.
Third, legal safety. Caution with promises, caution when getting concrete about conditions, caution with the honest word about shift work or weekend standby. The consequence is texts that are legally watertight but lack exactly the concreteness applicants need to decide.
This is not a criticism of HR. It is a description of what HR does out of its logic – and what a different logic needs, as soon as the task is "win applicants" instead of "administer personnel".
How marketing thinks career pages — target group, language, conversion
Marketing is attraction. It is about reaching a particular target person, moving them to a step, and leaving out everything that delays that step. Transferred to a career page, that also means three things.
First, target group instead of completeness. Who is the person who should apply to this position – concretely, with prior experience, life phase, professional standing. What interests them, what deters them, what do they look for first. A marketing-driven job ad leaves out a lot that does not count for this target person – and deepens what actually decides them.
Second, the language of applicants instead of internal terms. "Field service technician" is an HR designation. "You drive to customers, install and maintain our systems" is the applicant language. Both mean the same thing, both reach different applicants. Marketing thinking prefers the applicant language, because it mirrors the search behaviour and the self-image of the target person. More on how language filters applicant profiles is in the article on why the wrong people keep applying.
Third, conversion instead of mandatory information. A marketing-driven career page has a clear goal: interest should become an application. Everything on the page works towards this step – a clear form, a concrete contact person, an answer promise. That is the conversion gear in the WelleWest methodology: the tool that turns attentive visitors into applying people.
Three differences in practice
Three concrete examples show how the difference in thinking affects the text.
Example one, the position title. HR thinking: "Employee (m/f/d) in the area of plumbing and building technology". Marketing thinking: "Plumber with experience – Villach – company car included". In the first title the applicant knows nothing; in the second they know the job, the place, and a concrete advantage. With the first title Stefan would have to click to learn whether it is even his position; with the second he knows that beforehand.
Example two, the conditions. HR thinking: "We offer performance-based remuneration according to the collective agreement". Marketing thinking: "Collective-agreement minimum plus 15 percent overpayment, company phone, company car privately too, tools fully provided". The first sentence is an HR phrase, the second is a basis for decision. Applicants make their pre-decision based on the second, not the first.
Example three, the application close. HR thinking: "Please send your complete documents stating your earliest possible starting date and your salary expectation to our personnel department." Marketing thinking: "Write us briefly what you want to do – a CV is enough for the start. Stefan calls you back within three working days, phone weekdays from 6:30 to 18:00." The first close demands effort; the second lowers the barrier. More applications come via the second route.
At Thomas's, exactly this switch of the three points – across three positions in the mid-market business – raised the applicant quality visibly. Not the number, but the fit. The HR position stayed, but it became content provider instead of final editor.
What you concretely change with the reframe
Once you apply marketing thinking to the career page, four things change.
The position titles become more concrete and shorter to the point. Job, place, one advantage – three elements that together decide whether someone reads on.
The content of each position is structured from the applicant's perspective. What do you do on Monday, with whom, where, with what, what do you get for it. Instead of task bullet points and requirement lists, a narrative text emerges that quickly creates a concrete picture.
The conditions move forward, not back. "You get" and "you bring" swap places. Anyone who is to make a decision wants to know first what they get – not what is demanded of them. That is not disrespectful, that is sales logic.
The application is rebuilt into a mini-action. A short form, a concrete contact person with photo, an answer promise, a phone number prominent. Mandatory information moves to the lower edge of the page, into a quiet block that is there but does not dominate the main content.
When HR has a say — how you bring both worlds together
The reframe does not mean HR has to go. HR is the indispensable source for content only HR knows: actual remuneration bands, special arrangements, contract details, legal requirements. What changes is the role: HR delivers substance, marketing logic packages it.
A practical workflow for businesses with an internal HR position. HR collects, for each open position: the actual task area (in the words of the people currently doing the position), the conditions (everything that stands legally safe), the internal minimum requirements. Marketing, or the person looking after the career page, translates this substance into applicant language, cuts, highlights, builds conversion. HR reads against it and checks that nothing legally false is in it – but does not interfere with the tonality.
This division of tasks works in practice. It makes HR neither superfluous nor replaces HR knowledge – it only assumes that marketing and HR logic are two disciplines and that the right order matters. At Stefan's that is one person who does both. At Thomas's those are two functions that work together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does that make HR superfluous?
No. HR stays indispensable as a content provider and for everything that has to be kept legally clean. What changes is the final responsibility for the career page – that moves into the marketing area, because that is where the discipline sits that achieves applicant attraction.
Do I need a dedicated marketer for this?
Not necessarily. In small businesses the owner often takes this over – Stefan is a typical example. In larger businesses an existing marketing person can co-look-after the career page, with HR as the content source. What matters is the marketing mindset, not the formal marketing title.
What does this reframe cost?
Little, especially if you think yourself. Half a day per open position is enough for the switch, plus a one-off basic rework of the career page over one to two days. External support is realistically between 800 and 2,500 euros for a start with subsequent self-maintenance.
What changes for my job ads?
They become shorter, more concrete, and formulated in the language of the target person. Position titles get to the point, conditions move forward, mandatory information is bundled instead of distributed. CV requirements are decluttered in favour of "tell us briefly what you want to do".
Does this also work in B2B?
Yes, with an adjustment of the language. B2B industries like the technical mid-market need the specialist language of the target group instead of simplified general language. But the marketing logic stays the same: understand the target person, use their words, offer a clear action at the end. Thomas did exactly that in his special-purpose machinery business.
How long does the switch take?
For a first version of the career page plus two to three reworded positions, count on one to two weeks of distributed work. The full establishment of the new workflow – with HR as content provider, a marketing hand as final editor – takes two to three months, because routines have to settle.
What you can do today
Take one of your current job ads and rewrite it once – not for HR, but for the applicant you actually want. Concrete position, concrete conditions, concrete first working week, clear application invitation. Compare the result with the original. What you see is the reframe in miniature.
Anyone who wants to take the step from the individual job ad to the structural rework will find the bigger picture in the overview of career pages that bring applicants – including the question of which role HR and marketing play in which model.
