Background Check: Zillow vs. Realtor.com
I’m currently shopping for a house, so that means I do very little outside of refreshing my Zillow and Realtor.com feeds. At this point, when I’m out and about I feel like I have X-ray vision, having studied the listings of every house and apartment in town. That’s the one with the beautiful parquet. That’s the one with the great windows. That’s the one whose basement looks like a murder dungeon.
(Please prepare to roll your eyes.) Employer branding is a bit like marketing a home. You clean up the house and take the very best photos you can; you write a cheerful description and hope someone wants to bite.
Having spent so much time with my friends Zillow and Realtor lately, I thought I’d take a look at their careers pages to see how they compare.
Zillow keeping up with the times and featuring employees with masks.
Zillow
Zillow Group’s careers microsite accomplishes what any strong careers page should: It establishes an employer brand tone (professional and hopeful), introduces prospective employees to potential colleagues with photos and blurbs, shows visitors the open positions and where to apply with a job search widget above the fold, provides basic information about company benefits, and lays out the company’s values in a way that balances text and images. As a matter of fact, it does most of this on the main landing page alone.
One of its strongest assets is a minute-and-a-half-long video, titled “Our Next Chapter,” which ties Zillow’s business and its staff to the greater purpose of helping people find a home. It can be tough for prospective applicants, or even employees, to connect the dots between cause and effect when all you’re trying to do is find a job that pays, but it’s meaningful to understand how the work you do affects the lives of others, and employees increasingly want this from an employer.
The video is emotive, but I get the sense that the company is self-aware, that Zillow understands its role in the real estate world, that it is considering its role in the future of the real estate world, and that it takes this role seriously.
What Zillow’s microsite lacks is a clear relationship between its consumer-facing brand and its candidate-facing brand; it should be noted that though Zillow is a household name, its brand, visual or otherwise, is not what makes it recognizable. Considering the strength of the microsite, uninspiring visual branding won’t likely cost Zillow that many applicants, but it may not keep the company top of mind.
Overall, we give Zillow’s page high marks.
Pro tip: Staged group photos like these shouldn’t be the first thing candidates see when browsing your jobs.
Realtor.com
Like Zillow’s, realtor.com’s careers page ticks a lot of boxes: It introduces the company mission, makes it easy for visitors to search for open positions, includes information about benefits, and introduces job seekers to potential colleagues.
But this one just feels empty. I take issue with two things, both of which take up a considerable share of real estate on the page. The first is the mission statement, titled “You for Real.” We’ll reproduce it here:
At realtor.com® our purpose, put simply, is to help people realize the dream of homeownership. We accomplish this by simplifying the journey, providing clarity and opportunity, smoothing out the bumps along the way, and placing them in a home that’s right for them.
It’s a bold idea to be sure, but one each and every employee at this company takes seriously and passionately. We all play an important role and work as a team. Together, we build strategies, solutions and products to deliver a homebuying experience like no other.
From an innovative and hyper-functional home search with the most comprehensive and accurate listings, to editorial content that instills wisdom and confidence, to helping buyers and sellers connect with an agent that matches their specific needs, we all play a part in the consumer’s journey home, and are there to support them every step of the way.
If we do our jobs right, we help the real estate industry as a whole. For they are our partners as well as our customers and we depend on each other to make home a reality for so many.
We are realtor.com®. Welcome home.
It feels fluffy, templatized, manufactured, jargony. Their mission may be admirable, but unlike they say, what the company does is neither bold nor novel. I don’t get the sense that the company is self-aware. And finally, that closing: We are realtor.com. I think this is a tagline formula we’re all happy to put to bed.
“Do I think the tagline works?” (Via Giphy)
The second piece I take issue with is the long list of awards and accolades, seventeen actually, for Realtor.com as an employer and for their CEO. This list takes up more space than any other section on the page, and shifts the focus from the employee to the employer.
It’s nice that the company has been recognized, and awards certainly can be a sign of a healthy work environment, but we’re generally of the mind that workplace awards like these don’t matter to job seekers or to current employees. What matters is whether an employer can actually deliver a positive employee experience for an individual.
And the winner is…
Zillow gets it. They’ve managed to meet the basic requirements for a career page while tying their work to the bigger picture in a meaningful way.
Coming away from the realtor.com page, I don’t have a better sense of its brand identity.
Maybe Zillow takes a cheap shot at the breadbasket of our emotions, but I believe them, I get a sense of who they aim to be as a company.
Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance writer based in Richmond, VA, who writes about workplace culture and policies, hiring, DEI, employer branding, and issues faced by women. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Fast Company, and Food Technology, among others, and has been syndicated by MSN and The Motley Fool.
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