The war for tech talent is now in full swing, and a company’s careers site is on the front lines. Beyond attracting top candidates, a careers site is an outlet for highlighting the exciting work the company is doing and an opportunity to showcase its atmosphere, culture, and people – factors that are increasingly important in the current job market.

Over the past decade, we’ve worked with Cisco on a number of projects, including a recent brand refresh. In the course of that relationship, we learned that Cisco wanted to recruit and attract the best talent the tech world has to offer, but they realized that their careers site didn’t accurately reflect their culture or the compelling work they’re doing. External perceptions of Cisco as an outdated, stodgy tech company lagged behind the current reality, which is that Cisco operates like a startup and creates cutting-edge technologies. We set out on a yearlong project to rebuild their careers website from the ground up, researching user needs, streamlining user pathing, and implementing an updated visual design in a concerted effort to attract talent and increase applications.