Giving our Careers Page a Facelift
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At Creative Market, project ideas are constantly brewing. We’re building the next big creative company, and we’ve got a project to-do list from here to the moon that’ll get us there. But projects take resources! And there’s only so much our team of 37 can handle. As we scale efforts, there’s one topic that’s been the focus of many-a-chats, meetings and presentations since we spun out of Autodesk last July: hiring. By the end of 2018, we plan to almost double our headcount.
With hiring as a top priority this year, we had to reevaluate the journey and experience of our prospective job candidates. Part of that experience includes landing on the Careers Page, the on-site hub of our available job listings.
Historically our Careers Page hasn’t done the best job of telling the Creative Market story in a way that makes the company an attractive one for job seekers. Taking a journalistic approach to storytelling, and orchestrating a product team to get it done, I took a stab at giving our Careers Page a much-needed facelift.
Nailing Down Content
I started with research and analysis of our competitors and other notable companies in the tech world. I wanted to understand not only how they were presenting themselves to prospective candidates on their Careers pages, but how they approached all of their company pages. Company pages are usually grouped into one section in the footer, and include other staples like About, Team and Press pages. While we definitely have our own story to tell, it was an interesting exercise to survey the landscape, and understand how we stack up against other companies trying to attract similar talent.
My next step was to meet and chat with each key stakeholder directly benefitting from an updated Careers Page. I asked how they pitch Creative Market to different candidates, what they love about our team and how they define our culture. Their answers helped dictate exactly what we wanted to highlight, for example, “We’re a team that puts people first”, as expressed by COO Priya Kothari.
Finally, I put together a content proposal that took a journalistic approach to storytelling, incorporating the five Ws and the H: who, what, where, when, why and how.
The Five Ws (and the one H): How Each Section of Our Careers Page Tells a Different Part of The Story
The sections of the Careers page all work to achieve different micro-goals, each acting as a different chapter of the Creative Market story we aim to tell prospective candidates. Building a framework ahead of time helped us check off all five Ws (and the one H).
Why
- Inspiring through our vision: The first thing we hope our prospective candidates get on board with is our vision. We’re building the next big creative company helping millions of people of all backgrounds and expertise bring their creative projects to life.
- Encouraging with our growth: We used quick stats to showcase the growth of the company, helping to show that Creative Market can be a secure place for prospective candidates to grow their careers.
Who
- Connecting through the core values the define us: The values our team lives by help shape the decisions we make. They’re our guiding lights as we continue to scale up this company.
- Reassuring with team’s own voice: When trying to communicate the advantages of being on the Creative Market team, who better to hear from than the team itself? Surveying the team resulted in some genuinely authentic testimonials on what makes Creative Market a great place to work.
Where
- Welcoming through team and office photography: We take a lot of pride in our office, and the Careers Page is the perfect place to show off our new home. We also chose to show a diverse group of friendly faces to communicate that we welcome candidates from all backgrounds and walks of life. Big thanks to Jco Studios and Paige Winn for the great shots!
What and When
- Promising perks through our benefits: We take the health and personal growth of our employees seriously, and we’re proud of the different benefits we can tout.
- Provoking action with our job listings: The rest of the page all leads up to this: any positions available now at the company. We were thoughtful about presenting these in a way where we could also tell the story of the individual team each listing sits on.
How
- Motivating through posts on Medium: Our Medium publication, Building Creative Market, has become a window to the inner workings of our team. Lessons learned, momentous announcements, inspiration: it’s the best public-facing domain that shows what it’s like to work at Creative Market.
Orchestrating a Product Team to Get It Done
For the team working on it, the Careers Page project was just one more item on our to-do lists — nobody was a dedicated resource as we were all heads down on something bigger: the launch of Creative Market Pro. The all-star team included:
- Laura Busche on copy
- Bronwyn Gruet and Daniella Valerio on brand design
- Gerren Lamson on product design
- Adam Vera as a full-stack engineer
- and me as the project’s lead
On design…
The launch of Creative Market Pro meant we were introducing an entirely new brand system into our Creative Market family, and the design team identified a need for one overarching system linked to the Creative Market parent brand. Essentially, the marketplace has its own look and feel, and Pro has a different but related look and feel. What’s the right look and feel for the brand that incorporates both products?
The Careers Page would be our first step into defining that central brand system to bridge our current products, and anything we may release in the future. A bold serif (Lyon), gradient color bars, spot illustrations: we ventured into exciting new territory with the design of the page.
On engineering…
With Creative Market Pro looming, we had limited time and resources to get the Careers Page out the door. As small technical challenges arose, we had to made quick decisions around downsizing the scope of the project. We were in constant conversations identifying the “essentials” vs. the “nice-to-haves”.
All in all, it was a happy day when the updated Careers Page got through QA and finally went live.
Looking Ahead
Only revamping one of the pages of our company section is like only painting one nail. You need the whole set to really shine! A refresh of our full company section is in order to better share our story with the world. Next up, we’ll be rethinking our About page.
To be continued…
We’re always looking for amazing people to join the Creative Market team. We value our culture as much as we value our mission, so if helping creators turn passion into opportunity sounds like something you’d love to do with a group of folks who feel the same way, then check out our job openings and apply today!
