Job Posting Teardown: Instructure

This week we take a look at Instructure's job postings. Spoiler alert: they are doing things really, really well.

It's no coincidence that an ed-tech company is schooling the rest of the world on creating a world-class candidate experience.

Interested in elevating the candidate experience in your job postings? Head to www.ruutly.com for more.

Transcript

1. JOB POSTING TEARDOWN
2. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
3. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE First impressions? I like the fact that they place the emphasis on copy. Instead of defaulting to a hero image of smiling employees.
4. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE There’s no weird industry-speak, acronyms or unknown terms. It’s all super straightforward.
5. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE While the multiple CTAs are slightly distracting, they quickly establish what they’re doing and give you a glimpse into their culture and personality with a few lines of nicely executed copy.
6. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
7. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE This is what overachieving looks like. I expect nothing less from an industry-leading education company.
8. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE While most companies have one or two videos on their careers page, Instructure goes the distance with eight.
9. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Let’s meet Amber.
10. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Fantastic video. Not only does it show the personality of one of the members of the team, it also gives a glimpse into the culture of the company, the people who work there and what you could expect if you joined the team.
11. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Confession: I actually got lost watching a few of these. Every one of them had their own flavor and showed a different dimension of the company. 
 
 Really, really well done.
12. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE But there’s more to see, so let’s scroll!
13. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
14. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Ok, so I’ve mentioned it in past teardowns but far too many companies try to stuff their history into the first couple paragraphs of their actual job postings. 
 
 Instructure seems to be bucking that trend by giving a rundown of their roots here on the careers page. 
 Although we haven’t seen the job postings yet, this is a good call.
15. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE They seem to be really great at balancing the facts and the “boring stuff”…
16. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE …with fun and personality.
17. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
18. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE This is cool. A little dynamic timeline of where the company has been and what they’ve accomplished.
19. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE A FLAMETHROWER?!?! …and again they find a balance between fun and serious.
20. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Let’s take a look at these two sections. Up first, “In The News”.
21. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
22. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Surprise!!! It brings you to recent news about the company.
23. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE And they’ve done it again! 
 Dear Instructure: please teach a class to other companies on how to find this balance that you’ve mastered!
24. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Next up: let’s see where this leads…
25. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
26. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE HA! Team photos. And in what seems to be true Instructure fashion, they lead with personality.
27. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE While all of the funny copy and entertaining team photos, it may come off as goofy to some (a Mickey Mouse pun?)… I’m guessing it’s much more intentional than that. Instructure wants people with personality, people who can have fun and not take themselves too seriously. 
 
 And by including that personality in each step/section of the Career page, it acts like a birdcall, summoning the other fun, slightly weird, people who are drawn to people, companies and products that speak their language, to spread their wings and fly in Instructure’s direction. 
 
 Well played.
28. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE A “mouse-over” (killing the puns!) reveals the serious side.
29. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE I’m getting kind of picky here but I would love to see some of the other team members. 
 
 They only show nine people here. Why not show some love to the cookie- baking interns? (and other people who make the Instructure world go ‘round)?
30. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
31. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Who dis?
32. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Another video! You other companies need to step your culture video game up. Instructure has achieved superstars status.
33. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Let’s keep scrolling and see what else Instructure has in store for us.
34. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
35. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Looks like we have some values…
36. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE What really stands out about these (and the rest of Instructure’s copy) is that they come off so incredibly genuine. It’s clearly been written by real human beings and wasn’t simply copy and pasted from HR docs that have been sitting around in a filing cabinet for the past decade. 
 
 They are deliberate and want candidates to know (and also want to show), exactly who they are.
37. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE
38. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE While clear copy, puns and entertaining videos are good, it’s important not to lose sight as to why candidates are here. 
 
 They want to know, aside from freshly-baked cookies and fully stocked fridges, what your company offers. 
 
 Far too many companies don’t reveal this info until the interview or on-boarding. And by doing so, risk missing out on talent. 
 
 It’s so critical to show candidates what they want, when they want it and establish that level of transparency from the first interaction with your brand.
39. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE The next scroll brings us to their office locations.
40. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE …and one more brings us to the reason we’re here, the job postings.
41. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
42. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS Ooooh…. this is pretty.
 
 Not sure if the gradient serves a functional purpose but it looks good.
43. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS Strictly personal preference but I like this much more than dropdown menus or worse, auto-complete text fields.
 
 But this also has its limitations and would become very hectic once you add more cities or departments.
44. Showtime. Let’s click into a job posting. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
45. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
46. First impression: Where did Instructure go? NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
47. They seem to be using Lever as their ATS. Good decision as Lever has very clean postings (and an amazing API to customize postings etc.) But we feel slightly let down that all of that amazing branding, imagery, fun, color and brand story has visually disappeared. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
48. Let’s take a look at the copy. Something tells me we won’t be let down. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
49. One thing I find interesting about the copy is just how little of it there is. 
 
 This is a very good decision. 
 
 If we know the average candidate spends about 49 seconds on an ad before deciding if it’s a fit or not, this ad is very appealing. 
 
 There’s about 340 words in this ad. The average adult reads at a rate of about 250 words/min which means it would take the average adult about a minute and twenty seconds to get through this ad. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
50. And because Instructure has done such a great job showing who they are, where they’ve been and what to expect from them as a company, a candidate could essentially skip this section (or Instructure could restructure their ads and put this at the bottom of the ad). This would eliminate 97 words bringing the total word count to 245 words. 
 
 It would take the average adult less than a minute to read this entire job posting. 
 
 Perfect. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
51. Crystal clear copy. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
52. The primary focus of the position is consistent. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
53. The primary focus of the position is consistent. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
54. Let’s scroll down… NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
55. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
56. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS These headings are the way headings should be written. 
 
 By humans for humans.
57. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS The responsibilities seem straightforward enough.
58. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS This is the first time Instructure has left more to be desired with copy.
 
 All of these skills/requirements are pretty vague. There’s no real context.
59. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS Not sure this should have its own bullet point?
60. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS What kind of issues?
61. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS What environment is changing? How?
62. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS Hmmm… This sounds like it was copy & pasted from a government site…
63. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS Context could go a long way here. 
 
 What kind of problems will the candidate be solving? What kind of solutions will they be required to seek out? After they’ve sought out solutions, what will the ideal candidate do?
64. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS Context could go a long way here. 
 
 What kind of problems will the candidate be solving? What kind of solutions will they be required to seek out? After they’ve sought out solutions, what will the ideal candidate do?
65. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS Making sure candidates are reminded of just how awesome your company takes care of its employees is a very smart decision. 
 
 This is what candidates want and Instructure delivers again.
66. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS We’re very familiar with Lever so we know that clicking “Apply” will actually bring us to an application but in case you don’t believe me, let’s click.
67. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS
68. NEXT UP: THE POSTINGS Told you.
69. Instructure delivers one of the most consistent career page experiences we’ve ever seen. 
 
 Every element seemed to be crafted with the candidate in mind. Not only has Instructure taken time to understand what makes it an incredible company, they’ve taken the time to understand what kind of people make a great member of the Instructure family. 
 
 From there, it’s almost as if every part of that experience was reverse-engineered to speak to those people. FINAL THOUGHTS
70. FINAL THOUGHTS The actual job postings were not bad at all. 
 
 With the exception of some ambiguous skills/requirements creeping into the ad, the copy was clear and consistent with the expectations established through the careers page.
71. FINAL THOUGHTS The design of the job postings is very clear but they seemed to be missing some of that energy and life that was given on the careers page. 
 
 We rarely use these teardowns to talk about our own product but…
72. WHAT IF…?
73. WHAT IF…? What if Instructure included a fully interactive candidate experience in their ads? What if a candidate could continue the experience that was started on the careers page? 
 
 What if that experience could include video, images and interaction?
74. WHAT IF…? It’s pretty self-serving for us to pose those questions but we believe that job ads can be so much more for the companies that clearly care about candidate experience… and in many cases, companies simply aren’t aware of the possibilities.
75. FIRST STOP: CAREERS PAGE Instructure is the perfect example of a company pushing the envelope of candidate experience through their careers page and job postings. 
 
 Not once did it seem that the experience was designed for anybody other than the candidate. And that’s something that most companies can’t say. 
 
 Huge thanks to Instructure for setting the bar high.
76. THANK YOU! Have a company you want us to look at? Send us an email hello@ruutly.com