NEXT Trainee Recruitment Site goes Live

[Jon Malbon]

In our first steps to updating an admittedly dated Careers website, today we have launched a new Trainees section. There will be additions and amendments to come - namely the removal of the bolted on application form ! We have our own bespoke application system that is already live on the main site which will be applied to the trainees in due course.



Let me know if you hate it ;-)

[Green Dog]

Well, I've checked it as well and apart from the rattling kennel I live in my Pedigree Bone Top played the video's fine (apart from the delay - long enough for me to bury a bone).

You may also want to check those page title tags for performance! Bit too much unnecessary content if you ask me.

[Jon Malbon]

I'll have to agree to disagree with search Paul. The Head Office section is clearly set into 8 business areas with the number of jobs within each area in brackets (3) but there is also clearly a VIEW ALL (15) which shows there arent a great deal of jobs being advertised. But as said...when we develop this part of the site and start to advertise more positions we may bring in a search function if finding a job becomes unclear. I obviously test this theory on a number of different users to ensure finding a job doesnt pose a problem.

My only problem with current functinality is that you search for a job - cant find one - END.

There should be a speculative application form but as said - this part of the site is not developed yet.

Watch this space !

[Paul Vernon]

I suspect it's a Vista/Flash plugin issue. I've just been visiting other sites that have Flash and I'm seeing the same behaviour. On my XP desktop machine which is old and has a lower spec than my laptop, the video plays just fine :-)... Maybe Vista SP1 will fix my issues when I install it.

One other thing regarding the search feature. Although you don't have that many jobs on the site, your users don't know that.

Many usability studies have shown that a search feature placed in the top right corner of a site is one of the first things users scan a page for (and actually use). You only have to read a few Jakob Nielsen usability articles to be convinced of this.

[Jon Malbon]

Strange Paul. I've got a 1.66Hhz Toshiba with 512k Ram and a near full hardrive that im using now. I cleared the cache down to give a better POV with initial load times. Im using either IE6 or Firefox (at home) or IE7 at work. The only problem I have - and other forum users who ive asked to test is the startup - no jerkiness - but I will pass the comments on.

[Paul Vernon]

Hi Jon,

I've just checked the video again and it's still jerky however, whilst watching this time, I noticed my fans kick in on my laptop. Now this isn't just any old laptop, it's a dual core machine with 2Gb of ram with a hefty gfx card to boot. I checked my task manager and it seems that watching the videos on your site is sending Firefox's CPU usage through the roof thereby causing the jerky playback. When I stop playback, the machine returns to normal CPU usage levels.

I tried the site in IE8 beta, Opera 9.23 and Safari for windows and they all pegged out the processor and had jerky playback. I've checked all of the flash plug-in versions to make sure they are the latest for each browser and the OS is fully patched etc.

Perhaps that is my problem... Have you done much testing on MS Windows Vista clients?

[Jon Malbon]

Thanks Peter and thanks Paul....babum !

In response to Pauls's comments, search function at present is not necessary - remember we are discussing the Trainee section of the site and not the main site - of which development is yet to be started. Fashion Trainee roles clearly only have 4 positions - click 'The Roles'.

As for Head Office positions we haven't addressed this yet. At the moment we only have 15-20 positions live at each time split between 8 obvious business areas so a search is unessecary. However, for our next phase - which also includes speculative applications - a search will be put in place with a 'nearest match' function for the job description you put in.

As for the flash videos, I am aware that there is a longer than comfortable delay in the starting of particular interviews (Amy - 9secs on my 2 mb line), but once this page is loaded the interview seems to be flowing without pauses - you may need to get your 20mb line checked - as mine is absolutely fine - as is my other testers on similiar 1/2/4 and 8 meg lines - your ISP may be pulling your pants down ;-)

Accessibility is covered as I think this is most important. My only self critisicm of our site is a certain lack of cohesion with colours, text sizes etc.. but this can be resolved. Also the page flicking on the catalogue on the first page is outrageously annoying to me ! This will be removed !

Other than that it seems to be well on par with whatever else ive seen on the web.

Always room for improvement though so keep the feedback coming

Thanks,

[Paul Vernon]

I like it. There's plenty of info for people to read and find out about the business and what's involved in the roles you're advertising.

There does seem to be one usability feature that by it's very absence is glaringly conspicuous and that feature is search.

For users, being forced to browse and click through pages when they could search for and locate their target roles more quickly using a search facility can put a lot of people off. I know if I were looking for a job and was forced to trawl through job listings where there are many jobs that aren't necessarily relevant to me, I wouldn't stay on that site for long.

For trainees, there is one application form for all positions and I understand that search isn't really necessary for so few role descriptions but for the main careers site to be missing such an obvious feature seems to be an oversight especially when, from our own experience, a keyword based job search feature is just about the most heavily used feature on the sites we've built even when the jobs are easily accessed via alternative on-site mechanisms too.

The other thing that seemed to be a tad clunky as I went through the site was the delivery of the video. I'm on a 20Mb/s connection looking at the video and it was jerky and kept pausing which detracted from my user experience. It is good that you have a flash alternative to the video so it covers accessibility and lower bandwidth users and I ended up reading the info supplied there because the jerky delivery of video was winding me up.

Overall though, a great site with good potential :-)

[Peter Gold]

Jon

It looks good. The link is here for anyone else who wants to have a look: http://careers.next.co.uk/trainees/Index.aspx?p=1