Medivet is a family of caring professionals delivering exceptional care that’s always there.
We have been working with the team at Medivet since 2018, supporting them through a large scale digital transformation project. In addition to the main website, Medivet wanted to develop a new website dedicated to supporting career opportunities across their 350+ veterinary practices in the UK and Europe.
Before we implemented Optimizely as part of their transformation project, Medivet managed their recruitment through their main website. However, they were aware that this spoke to a consumer audience and so we saw the opportunity to create a satellite site to organise and present careers-specific content.
They wanted to bring together a wide range of information to support those looking to launch a career in veterinary science or to take their next career development step at Medivet.
Driving new job applications was key, as the need for vets and nurses increased dramatically during lockdown as many families decided that they wanted a pet as they were at home more often. Medivet also hoped to simplify the HR recruitment processes across the business, adding consistency and support across all practices.
After consideration, Filter recommended that the site should be built using WordPress as the core CMS, utilising the new Gutenburg Block editor to make it easy for content administrators to customise content and layout.
Filter is a Silver WordPress VIP partner and has an extensive history with the platform that stretches back for more than a decade. We have delivered multiple careers sites using WordPress and believe that its first-class content management system and SEO-friendly output means that it helps with the acquisition of candidates.
The strides forward that the platform has made in introducing a new drag-and-drop block-based editor interface provides content administrators with the ability to customise the site to meet their needs without impacting the overall design. This provides confidence that they have the autonomy to make changes, update content and add to the site without losing the brand vision.
We engaged with Medivet on the Information Architecture and User Experience for the site and developed wireframes detailing each stage of the journey. This allowed us to consider how prospective candidates would find information, vacancies and complete the application process.
Using this knowledge, and feedback from vet practices and professionals, we agreed on the prioritisation of content, and the use of search filters to help users find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently.
For any recruitment site, the ability to search for vacancies and apply for them is the priority. However, due to the number of recruitment platforms available, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach for integration.
Medivet currently uses Lumesse as their recruitment platform, and we integrated with the APIs from their ATS (application tracking system) to pull vacancy content into the site and then display it using comprehensive search/filter options based on location, role, job type and keywords.
Applications and recruitment tracking were also embedded into the site. For recruitment tracking, applications are filtered automatically based on given criteria such as keywords, skills, employers and years of experience.
Alongside vacancies, careers sites should showcase the benefits of a company and succinctly communicate its ethos, principles and core values. They can do this in many ways, but typically a range of content types from written to imagery and video can all help to provide information to different audiences.
Medivet also had an additional challenge – as a rapidly growing business, they were starting to expand into other countries, and therefore it was important to have the ability to scale the site to be used in multiple European markets. This means providing content in local languages and ensuring that this is targeted towards country-specific search engines.
We used the WPML WordPress multilingual plugin alongside block templates patterns in the CMS to provide authors with the ability to create standardised pages for each market. This reduced the complexity and time to deliver for Medivet, whilst ensuring that each page delivered the correct information.
Ensuring that search engines can read your content is an important part of developing a successful website, and especially crucial for a site providing vacancy information.
This is because vacancies are often time-critical, with a closing date for applications. Ensuring that the job posting appears in search engines results as soon as possible is important to ensure the maximum number of applicants.
With the Medivet Careers site, we have added Job Schema data to the vacancies on the site. This means that search engines can understand both the data on the page more easily and the context of that content. This leads to more relevant search results and increased indexing of information.
At Filter, we believe in getting the foundations right at the start. As part of this, we make sure that analytics are baked in from the off, and so Google Analytics is deeply embedded into the site, tracking job views and events throughout the application process.
To help our client then report on what is happening in their management and board reports, we developed a custom performance dashboard that provides a view of all Medivet’s recruitment data.
Doing this first, and doing it right, means that the data is correct from the beginning and the team running the site can view trends and decisions based on accurate data.
With the website hot off the press, we’ve already seen positive performance metrics.
We’ve tracked increased page views of careers content and eyeballs to key roles for recruiting, increased consumption of video content and optimised performance for mobile, and encouragingly we are seeing a strong application rate from the visitors using the site.
The site is ranking well in search engines, both in the UK and in European countries, and delivering on its goal of increasing the numbers of vets and nurses that Medivet can recruit across their estate.
You can visit the site here: https://careers.medivet.co.uk, and also find out more about Medivet and why they are the leading veterinary consultancy group in the UK and Europe here: https://medivet.co.uk.
We are pleased to have built a robust and flexible solution to support Medivet with their ongoing recruitment requirements.
CEO, Filter
