Your website has a split personality problem. You built it to attract families who need care. But look at your analytics. Half your traffic might be job seekers looking for work.
Two completely different audiences. Two opposite goals. One website trying to serve both.
Picture a typical home care agency with a 67% homepage bounce rate. Dig into the data and the story writes itself. Visitors looking for care services click the "Join Our Team" button by mistake. Job seekers get lost in pages about dementia care and companion services. Both groups confused. Both groups leaving.
This is the dual-audience problem, and it costs home care agencies leads on both sides of the business. Families can't figure out if you're actually a care provider or just a staffing company. Caregivers can't find the apply button without scrolling through content that wasn't written for them.
The question isn't whether this is a problem. The question is what to do about it.
The Recruitment Crisis Makes This Decision Urgent
I'm not being dramatic when I say your recruitment strategy might determine whether your agency survives the next five years.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 765,800 job openings for home health and personal care aides every single year through 2034. That's not total growth. That's annual openings, driven largely by turnover and people leaving the field.
PHI's 2025 research puts it even more starkly: 9.7 million total direct care jobs will need to be filled between 2024 and 2034. The workforce currently stands at about 4.3 million.
And here's what should keep you up at night: the 2025 Activated Insights Benchmarking Report shows caregiver turnover at 75%. That's actually an improvement from the 79% reported in 2024.
Every caregiver who quits costs you roughly $2,600 to replace, according to Activated Insights' analysis. For a 100-caregiver agency with 75% turnover, that's $195,000 walking out the door every year.
So yes, how you present yourself to potential caregivers matters. A lot.
Careers Page vs. Careers Site: Understanding the Difference
Let's get the terminology straight, because these terms get used interchangeably when they mean very different things.
A careers page is a section within your existing website. It lives at something like yourcompany.com/careers. It's part of your main site's navigation, shares the same design template, and exists alongside your service pages, about page, and contact information.
A careers site is a dedicated web property focused entirely on recruitment. This could be:
- A subdomain: careers.yourcompany.com
- A separate domain: yourcompanyjobs.com or yourcompanycareers.com
- A hosted career portal through your ATS (applicant tracking system)
The key distinction isn't technical. It's strategic. A careers page is an addition to your main marketing. A careers site is a parallel marketing effort with its own identity, messaging, and conversion goals.
When a Simple Careers Page Works Fine
Not every agency needs a separate careers site. I'll be honest: for many agencies, building one would be a waste of money and attention.
A careers page within your main site makes sense when:
You're hiring fewer than 5 caregivers per month. At this volume, you don't need sophisticated recruitment marketing. You need a clear job description, an easy application process, and consistent follow-up. A well-designed careers page handles this fine.
You have fewer than 30 caregivers total. Smaller agencies often recruit through word of mouth and referrals anyway. The 2025 Activated Insights data shows word-of-mouth hires have just 59% turnover compared to 88% for Indeed-sourced hires. If referrals are your primary channel, your website is a credibility check, not a lead generator.
Your recruitment advertising budget is under $1,000 per month. A dedicated careers site needs ongoing content, optimization, and promotion to justify itself. If you're spending modestly on recruitment ads, those dollars are better invested in Indeed sponsorship or social media campaigns than in building a separate web property.
Your website traffic is below 500 monthly visitors. There's no point separating audiences if you barely have an audience. Build traffic first.
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When You Need a Dedicated Careers Site
Here's where it gets interesting. A clear pattern keeps emerging across home care agency websites. Agencies hitting certain thresholds almost always benefit from separating their recruitment presence.
Consider a dedicated careers site when:
You have 50+ caregivers and plan to grow. At this size, recruitment becomes a continuous process, not an occasional need. You're always hiring, always onboarding, always backfilling turnover. Your recruitment presence needs to work as hard as your client-facing marketing.
You're hiring 10+ caregivers per month. High-volume recruiting is a different animal. You need to attract a large applicant pool, screen efficiently, and move fast. Research from Workable shows optimized careers pages can increase applicant conversion by 15-20%. At 10+ hires monthly, that optimization compounds significantly.
You're spending $2,000+ monthly on recruitment advertising. If you're investing this much in driving traffic, you should be driving it somewhere purpose-built for conversion. Sending Indeed clicks to a general website with a buried careers link is like paying for a billboard that points to your loading dock.
Your website analytics show confusion. Look at your data. Are people who arrive on service pages bouncing to careers content? Are applicants getting lost in your site navigation? Are families clicking job postings by mistake? These are signs your audiences are tripping over each other.
You're competing against franchises with strong employer brands. The big franchises invest heavily in recruitment marketing. If you're losing candidates to Home Instead, Comfort Keepers, or Right at Home, part of the reason might be their dedicated careers presence. Comfort Keepers, for instance, operates comfortkeepers.jobs as a completely separate recruitment portal.
The SEO Question: This Is Where It Gets Complicated
I need to be honest about something that most articles on this topic gloss over. The SEO implications aren't as clear-cut as some marketers suggest.
Google's John Mueller has stated that "Google web search is fine with using either subdomains or subdirectories." Semrush's research confirms this: from a pure ranking perspective, Google treats them equally.
The practical consideration is this: subdirectories keep all your link equity consolidated on your main domain, while subdomains may need to build visibility separately. This matters because a subdomain can effectively start fresh, requiring its own effort to establish authority.
So while Google doesn't penalize subdomains, you should consider whether you have the resources to build authority on a new web property. For most agencies, keeping careers content as a robust section of the main site (yourcompany.com/careers) is the pragmatic choice.
But here's the thing: SEO isn't the only consideration. And for recruitment specifically, it might not even be the most important one.
The case for a separate careers site despite SEO concerns:
- User experience matters more than rankings. If your combined site confuses both audiences, you lose even if you rank well.
- Paid traffic doesn't care about domain authority. When you're driving Indeed, Facebook, or Google Ads traffic to your careers site, SEO is irrelevant. What matters is conversion.
- Employer brand and company brand can conflict. Your message to families ("We provide compassionate care for your loved ones") is fundamentally different from your message to caregivers ("Join a team that values and supports you"). Trying to optimize for both on one site often results in optimizing for neither.
The Middle Ground: A Robust Careers Section
Here's what I actually recommend for most mid-sized agencies: Build a substantial careers section within your main site (yourcompany.com/careers) with its own distinct navigation, design elements, and content. Make it feel like a destination within your site, not just a page. This gives you SEO benefits while still creating a focused recruitment experience.
Reserve true separate sites for agencies with 100+ caregivers or those with specific technical needs like ATS integration that requires a hosted portal.
What to Include on a Dedicated Careers Presence
Whether you build a separate site or a robust careers section, the content requirements are the same. And they're driven by one uncomfortable truth: caregivers have options, and they're evaluating you just as much as you're evaluating them.
Research compiled by Vouch shows 83% of job seekers research company reviews and ratings before applying. DSMN8's data reveals that 9 out of 10 candidates would apply for a job at a company with an active employer brand.
Half of your applicants are doing this research on their phones. Activated Insights found that 50% of home care applicants use their smartphone as the sole technology for applying to jobs.
With that context, here's what your careers presence needs:
Mobile-first application process. Not mobile-friendly. Mobile-first. Test your application on a phone. If it takes more than 3 minutes to complete, you'll lose candidates mid-application.
Real employee voices. Video testimonials, written stories, day-in-the-life content. Generic stock photos of smiling caregivers don't cut it. People want to hear from actual employees about what it's really like to work for you. (This mirrors what families want to see on your client-facing site too.)
Clear pay and benefits information. I know, I know. You're worried about competitors seeing your rates. But wage opacity costs you candidates. At minimum, provide ranges. Better yet, be specific about starting pay, mileage reimbursement, bonus structures, and benefits.
Training and growth path. Caregivers want to know they can develop. What certifications do you help them earn? What's the path from caregiver to shift supervisor to care coordinator? Agencies offering 8+ hours of orientation training report nearly $350,000 more in annual revenue according to the 2025 Benchmarking Report, likely because better training improves retention.
Culture proof. What does your company actually value? Show, don't tell. Photos of team events, recognition programs, the actual office environment. If your Glassdoor reviews are strong, feature them prominently.
Easy contact options. Phone number (that someone answers), text option, chat if you have it. Many caregivers prefer to talk to a human before filling out an application. Make that easy.
Real Examples: How the Big Agencies Handle This
Let's look at what the major franchises do. Not because you should copy them exactly, but because they've invested millions in figuring out what works.
Comfort Keepers operates a completely separate domain: comfortkeepers.jobs. This is distinct from their client-facing site at comfortkeepers.com. The jobs site focuses entirely on recruitment, with prominent location search, clear messaging about benefits, and a streamlined application process.
Right at Home uses a dedicated careers section at rightathome.net/jobs. It's part of their main domain but functions as a focused recruitment hub with its own navigation and content.
Home Instead similarly maintains homeinstead.com/home-care-jobs as a substantial careers section, featuring employee testimonials, training information, and location-based job search.
Notice the pattern: even among franchises, I've found there's no single "right" approach. Some use separate domains, others use robust sections of their main site. What they all have in common is treating recruitment as a distinct marketing effort with dedicated resources and content.
Decision Checklist: Do You Need a Separate Careers Site?
Score yourself: 1 point for each "yes"
- Do you have 50+ caregivers?
- Do you hire 10+ caregivers per month?
- Do you spend $2,000+ monthly on recruitment advertising?
- Do your analytics show users bouncing between client and careers content?
- Are you losing candidates to franchises with strong employer brands?
- Is your main website primarily optimized for families seeking care?
- Do you have dedicated recruitment staff who could manage a separate site?
- Does your ATS offer a hosted careers portal you're not using?
0-2 points: A robust careers page within your main site is probably sufficient. Focus on making it mobile-friendly and easy to find.
3-5 points: Consider building a substantial careers section with its own navigation and content strategy. This might live at yourcompany.com/careers but should feel like a destination, not an afterthought.
6-8 points: A dedicated careers site (subdomain or separate domain) is likely worth the investment. Treat it as a parallel marketing effort with its own budget and KPIs.
The Contrarian View: When Separation Creates Problems
I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't acknowledge the downsides of splitting your web presence.
Maintenance burden. Two sites means two sets of updates, two design systems to maintain, two content calendars. For agencies already stretched thin, this is real overhead.
Brand consistency risk. When your careers site and main site are developed separately, they can drift apart in messaging, design, and tone. Candidates who visit both may wonder if they're even the same company.
The SEO cost is real. I mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating. A subdomain starting from zero authority will take time to rank. If organic search is important to your recruitment strategy, factor in 6-12 months of building visibility.
It doesn't fix the real problem. If caregivers are leaving because of low pay, poor scheduling, or bad management, a fancier careers site won't save you. Indeed-sourced hires have 88% turnover not because of how agencies present themselves online, but because of what happens after the hire.
The best recruitment website in the world is worthless if your retention is broken.
What This Actually Costs
Let me give you rough numbers so you can budget appropriately:
Enhanced careers page (within existing site): $1,500-$5,000 one-time if you hire a developer, or DIY if you're comfortable with your CMS. Ongoing cost is minimal, just content updates.
ATS-hosted careers portal: Typically included in your ATS subscription ($100-500/month depending on the platform). Workable, Greenhouse, and healthcare-specific systems like Apploi offer this.
Custom careers subdomain or microsite: $5,000-$15,000 for initial development, plus $500-2,000/month for content, optimization, and maintenance if you want it done well.
Separate branded careers domain: $15,000-$40,000+ for development with ongoing marketing investment. This only makes sense for large regional providers or multi-location operations.
Compare these costs to what turnover actually costs you. At $2,600 per departed caregiver, even modest improvements in application quality or retention can pay for a significant web investment.
The question isn't "careers page or careers site?" The question is: "Are we treating caregiver recruitment with the same strategic seriousness as client acquisition?"
Moving Forward: Start With Clarity
Before you redesign anything, answer these questions:
Who visits your website more often, families seeking care or people seeking jobs? Your analytics can tell you. If it's roughly even or tilted toward job seekers, that's a strong signal your recruitment presence needs more attention.
What happens when someone clicks "Careers" on your site right now? Try it. Time how long it takes to complete an application on your phone. Count how many clicks it takes to find salary information. Note whether the content speaks to caregivers or sounds like it was written for clients.
Where do your best caregivers actually come from? If it's word of mouth and referrals, invest in making those channels easier. If it's paid advertising on job boards, make sure you're sending that traffic somewhere optimized for conversion.
The dual-audience problem doesn't have a universal solution. What works for a 200-caregiver regional provider won't work for a 30-caregiver local agency. But the principle is simple: caregivers are your product, and they deserve marketing as thoughtful as what you give families.
In a market where you need to fill 765,800 positions annually just to keep pace with turnover and growth, the agencies that win will be the ones that make caregivers feel wanted before they even apply.
The Ultimate Marketing Checklist for Home Care
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