Army : Putting you in the picture

Images are used in job descriptions to engage potential recruits.

The Site

The British Army’s recruitment site illustrates its job descriptions with people in action.

Army Jobs, the recruitment site of the British Army, includes a Job Explorer box on its home page urging visitors to “Discover the job that’s right for you”. This leads to a page with various options including a ‘Find jobs’ search, which can be focused from multiple dropdowns, and ‘Browse by job group’, a picture matrix covering seven roles from Combat to Music & Ceremonial.

Both Find jobs and Browse generate a list of vacancies, each of which consists of a summary description of the role and qualifications needed plus a colour photograph of an individual or unit ‘at work’. These are displayed vertically, ten to a page. Clicking the job title opens a full job description and supporting information about career and skills development.

The Takeaway

The Army’s use of photographs in its job descriptions is innovative and effective on several levels. Most obviously, it makes the display page more attractive, which has increased value when the selling of the organisation is seen (as here) to be as important as the pitching of particular jobs. The inclusion of a photograph also provides a handy snapshot that reinforces the role summary and helps bring it to life, which in turn makes it more real and literally easier to visualise (and thus begin to engage with).

Equally important is that the feature fits in with and reinforces the approach adopted site-wide, through the use of visuals, video and recruit-oriented content, to engage with individuals (‘we’ve got a job for you’ rather than ‘we’ve got jobs’). Arguably, the Army has to work harder than most to attract people of the right calibre, but in doing so with this amount of dash it offers a tactical lesson to recruiting sergeants anywhere where quality candidates are thin on the ground.

First published on 16 December, 2008