Generating More Applicants Using Job Aggregators

Job aggregators (Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com, GlassDoor.com, etc.) have become a dominant force in the job board industry, with compete.com indicating that they generate more unique visitors each month than Monster and CareerBuilder combined. Many of our clients generate 50% or more of their applicants directly from these sites.

Job aggregators are built to match job seekers with jobs in the same way that Google matches your keyword search with websites

There are many benefits to posting your jobs on these job boards:

• It is generally free for employers to have their jobs listed in the main “organic” job search results.
• Job aggregator sites such as Indeed.com are spending an immense amount of time and money on search engine optimization, so getting your job listed on their site gets you access to the traffic they are generating from Google.
• Not only will your jobs populate when visitors run searches, they’re also blasted out to their users who have created email “job alerts.”
• Finally, you can generate additional job seeker traffic, and thereby find additional applicants, by sponsoring your jobs on their site. Even though most employers don’t know the potential available to them by sponsoring jobs and how the process works, it is a very cost effective way to generate applicants (more on this later.)

This post is the first in a four part series detailing how to use job aggregators to maximize the number of qualified applicants for your job openings. (ie. Get as many qualified applicants as possible)

Understand How Job Aggregators Work

Job Aggregators work very differently than a normal job board. It is vital that you understand these differences in order to use them effectively.

Job aggregators are built to match job seekers with jobs in the same way that Google matches your keyword search with websites, based on “relevance.” To explain it simply, normal category based job boards (like Craigslist) prompt the employers and the job seekers to choose from a list of categories, thus forcing them to both speak the same language. Job aggregators don’t generally have categories, they instead allow job seekers to enter keywords and a location, compare that search against the millions of jobs in their database, and then sort the results based on how closely the job relates to the search performed. This means that there is no structure in place for job seekers and employers to speak the same language.

In other words, if you use the wrong words in your job title or description, it is possible that potential job seekers may never see your ad. This happens either because it didn’t get matched to their search or because it was listed so far down in the results that they never got to it.

Job aggregators don’t generally have categories, they instead allow job seekers to enter keywords and a location, compare that search against the millions of jobs in their database, and then sort the results based on how closely the job relates to the search performed.”

Pushing your Jobs to Job Aggregators

Getting your jobs listed on a job aggregator site is the first step in generating traffic. There are a couple different ways to get your jobs listed, and some are better than others.

Jobs Pushed by other Job Boards – Many times, an employer’s jobs are already listed on a job aggregator site because the employer posted to a paid job board (such as CareerBuilder) that then pushed or sponsored the jobs to the aggregator. Although this may result in generating applicants, it is not a suggested method for pushing jobs for 2 reasons: one, you are giving credit for applicants being generated to the paid job board, not the aggregator that actually generated the job seekers. And two, most employers only post certain jobs to paid job boards, which means not all of their openings will be listed on the aggregator sites.

Jobs Scraped by the Job Aggregator – Many job aggregation sites offer to go to your company’s career site on a regular basis and copy your jobs into their database. Although this is a better way to get your jobs listed than using a 3rd party paid job board (because all of your jobs will be listed) it is still not the best way to do it. The main reasoning here is that when a job aggregator scrapes your site, you don’t have control over what information they grab about your job.

Jobs Pushed via XML Feed (Like ApplicantPro) – This is the best way to get your jobs on a job aggregation site, but keep in mind that not all feeds are created equal. The real benefit of using an XML push is that you can control the information that is sent to the job aggregation site. This will be discussed in our future post about improving the results of your ad, but simply put; using a feed would allow you to have a different job title, description, location that is pushed over to the job board than what is on your careers site.

Once you understand how job aggregators work, have your jobs listed on the sites, and you are generating job seeker traffic and applications, you are ready to start taking steps to improve the results you are receiving. Watch for the rest of our posts in this series that take job aggregators to the next level, or sign up for our webinar on “Keywords” or “Job Aggregators” to learn more.

If you have any further questions about the items mentioned in this article or would like more information, please contact us.