Jobs2Web Blog

Why your jobs need to be Google ready...

...And why they probably aren't. Authoria has the lowdown in their online newsletter, Recruiting Edge, which features an article on search engine visibility by our own Peter Brasket:

Organizations typically place a lot of emphasis on recruiter performance, instead focusing on such metrics as “placements made” and “time-to-fill.” But the performance of the company’s career website and its impact on these metrics is largely overlooked if not ignored.

So there’s no question that your recruiters should be working hard, but are your jobs contributing to your overall recruiting performance?

Let’s start with a basic metric: Over 30 million job-oriented searches are run monthly on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other major search engines. Not surprisingly, these search engines get 25-30X more traffic (i.e., potential candidates) than the mainstream job boards.

Unfortunately, chances are your jobs didn’t show up in these searches.

Read the rest in this month's Recruiting Edge. Then head over to our newly-redesigned website (www.jobs2web.com) to see some examples of how major companies like the Mayo Clinic, AT&T Wireless and Xerox are making sure their jobs do show up where it counts. You can also find case studies and video presentations on how employers are increasing candidate flow by optimizing their career sites for Web searches.

As Peter's article underscores, one of the roadblocks to getting your jobs to show up on Google, Yahoo, MSN and the rest is that most Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are designed to prevent that very thing. To remedy that, use an ATS that integrates seamlessly with Jobs2Web, such as Authoria Recruiting.

How to supercharge your career site (in less than 30 minutes)

Important disclaimer: 30 minutes actually refers the length of this online PowerPoint/video presentation from the last month's Recruiting.com Roadshow and Un-Conference, which was held at Best Buy headquarters in the Twin Cities. Doug Berg, co-founder of Jobs2Web and HotGigs, gave a whirlwind tour of how updating your career site and making it search engine friendly can pay huge dividends in increased candidate flow.

Nicole St. Martin, our resident search optimization expert at Jobs2Web, sets the stage for Doug who leads us on a thought-provoking tour, touching on topics such as:

• How typical corporate job/career sites actually drive away candidates
• Why your ATS is a great tool once you know the candidate, but works against you on the Web
• Why your jobs are probably not being found on Google, Yahoo and MSN, and what you can do about it
• How to effectively use email marketing to promote your employment brand
• How to reach out to passive candidates via webinars and online recruiting events
• Why every career site needs a Live Chat to engage visitors in real time
• What is an RSS feed and how you can use it to form and maintain relationships with top candidates

If you are in HR or otherwise responsible for helping your organization win the war for talent, you owe it to yourself to grab a cup of coffee and view this online presentation, which combines slides and video. You can find it here.

Afterwards, if you have questions you can either leave a comment below, drop us an email at customerservice@jobs2web.com, or contact us directly via phone or Live Chat.

Xerox/Jobs2Web case study:The Chad digs deeper

Chad Sowash follows up on our recently-released case study on Xerox's SEO efforts with Jobs2Web. He has a conversation with a knowledgeable Xerox insider, "a friend of mine who we’ll just call Dave" on tbe benefits of career site optimization via Jobs2Web:

Chad: How were they able to implement SEO changes without getting your ATS provider involved?

Dave: The Jobs2Web team created a optimized site which they maintain, optimize with Xerox job content, and provide the correct links back to our ATS for proper job seeker application and tracking. Also remember, all new sites have to gain favor with the search engines and become “trusted”, which took some time with the new optimized site, but the results are really showing now.

Chad: Big question, what differences are you seeing when using SEO versus traditional job boards?

Dave: SEO has provided more relevant candidates, where we have noted job boards providing more irrelevant candidates, which equates into more work and lower efficiencies for our recruiting staff. We have adopted SEO to reduce reliance on job boards, provide more relevant candidates, and improve efficiencies. Through our research, here at Xerox, we were finding job postings on job boards just wasn’t bringing in the right candidates, which wasted our recruiters time and pushed us further toward the relevance model of SEO.

Read the entire interview at Chad's blog.

Are your job titles hurting your recruiting?

The answer: definitely. To find out how, read "Wouldn't you love a job as a P2 Fld Comp Sup?" by our own Doug Berg, currently on the front page at ERE.net.

How long will it take for our jobs to show up in Google?

This is a question our Jobs2Web team is asked daily by employers, and one I’d like to tackle in this post.

I think the best way to answer is to share some Google results for clients, so I’ve added some links to results at the end of this blog entry. But let me provide a bit of background on what has to happen to get your jobs to show up in the major search engines.

80-85% of the clicks on a search result page will be on “organic” or “natural” search result links (e.g. – not paid ads). There are two basic pre-conditions to show up in the natural results: Indexing and Ranking.

Indexing means your jobs must be found by the Search Engines. If you’re using an applicant tracking system (ATS) today, your jobs are most likely not indexable. The ATS prevents the Search Engine spiders from finding your job content.

Secondly your jobs and job families or categories need to be relevant to the search; the more relevant and mindful of Search Engine rules, the higher ranked within the results. Unfortunately jobs played by an ATS are not rank-friendly.

So the double-whammy for most employers is your jobs can’t be found by the Search Engines, and even if found would not be highly ranked.

When we solve these issues with Jobs2Web we find early Search Engine traffic results when a searcher includes the name of the employer in the search string. That is unusual however – our research finds only about .1% of job-related searches will include the name of the desired employer.

The predominant search combines the location, the job name, and the word “job”. For example “Minnesota Hospital Administration Jobs”, or “08889 SAP OTC job” for a zip code-based search.

Indexing and ranking will differ by client. After eight months of Jobs2Web optimization Xerox has become very strong in a number of job family categories important to their hiring requirements, and in many of their results is the only employer visible (job-boards dominate).

Cingular (now AT&T) had no direct jobs presence on Google three quarters ago – but is now the fourth result for “retail sales jobs”, critical as they have over 1500 open sales positions in their Jobs2Web program.

Strong results can occur faster – HealthEast was the first healthcare provider to adopt Jobs2Web in Minnesota, and now dominates relevant job searches. 36 of their forty optimized job families/categories now appear in the first forty Google results. It’s been about five months since their Jobs2Web program went live. Results here.

So what is the right expectation to set for your jobs to be visible within organic Search Engines? You should see results within 2-3 quarters, and when done properly the results will continue to strengthen with time.

Peter Brasket is a co-founder of HotGigs, and leads the Jobs2Web career site and search engine optimization project.