What Your Careers Page Should Look Like

Your careers page is either doing work or it's not. Most aren't.

If your page has a stock photo of a smiling person in a hardhat, a list of generic benefits, and an application form with 14 required fields.. you're filtering out the good candidates before they ever hit submit. Here's what the page should actually look like.

Real Photos. No Stock.

Take three pictures this week. Your crew loading up in the morning. A job in progress. Someone who's been with you three-plus years doing what they do. Put those on the page.

Stock photos signal "we didn't try." Your own photos signal "we exist, we're real, this is what you're walking into." Candidates making a major life decision about who they're going to work for want to see reality. Give it to them.

If you have one long-tenured employee, get a two-sentence quote from them. "Been here four years. Schedule is predictable and Patrick actually answers when something goes wrong." That does more work than any marketing copy you can write.

Post the Real Schedule

Vague scheduling kills applications from the people you actually want.

Write out what work hours look like with specifics. "We run jobs 7am to 5pm most days. Summer means occasional Saturday availability. We don't do emergency calls, so your evenings are yours." Now the candidate can decide if it fits their life before they apply.

The people who need certainty about their schedule will self-select in. The people who can't commit to early mornings will self-select out. Both outcomes save you time.

Ambiguity doesn't attract more people. It just attracts the wrong ones.

Show the Actual Pay Range

One number is weak. A range is honest.

"$21-26/hour depending on experience" is better than "competitive pay." It tells candidates whether to bother, which saves you from screening 40 applications from people who need $28 when your ceiling is $24.

List out what comes with the pay. Don't make it a paragraph. Make it a list:

Health insurance (or "health insurance not currently offered")

Company vehicle or mileage reimbursement

Tool/equipment allowance

PTO after 90 days

Overtime structure

Path to crew lead or foreman

If you don't offer something, say so. "We're a small team so no health insurance yet, but we're fully transparent about that" is more trustworthy than leaving it off and having the candidate find out at the offer stage. That's where you lose people you actually wanted.

And if you want the best people, pay top of market. Full stop. If you want to be the best place to work, you have to pay like it. Lead with that number.

Make It Easy to Apply

Two steps max. Name, phone number, maybe one short question like "What kind of work have you done?" That's it.

Every form field you add cuts your application rate. A candidate who's good at their job is probably not unemployed and desperate. They have options. If your application takes 25 minutes to fill out, they went to the next posting.

Put multiple ways to reach you. Apply through the form. Text this number. Call between 8 and 5. The easier you make it, the faster the right people get to you.

Response Time Is a Signal

How fast you respond to an application tells candidates everything about how you run your business.

Respond within a few hours → you're saying we're organized, we take this seriously, you matter. Respond in five days → you're saying the opposite. By then, they've already interviewed somewhere else.

Candidates apply to 5+ places at once. Whoever moves first makes the offer first. Start late → finish late → lose them. Speed problem, not candidate quality problem.

Set up a text auto-reply if you need to. "Got your application. We review everything and will reach out within 24 hours." That alone beats 80% of the competition because most don't even acknowledge receipt.

The Fix Is One Afternoon

Take three photos. Write one honest paragraph about what a real workday looks like. Post a pay range. Simplify your application to under five fields.

That's it. You don't need a designer. You don't need a new website. You just need to replace the vague with the real.

Candidates want to trust you before they call. Give them a reason to.

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