Search Engines and Aggregators

Welcome to the next installment in our Webinar Series. Today I’d like to discuss one of the key players in the world of job postings and how to post jobs the “right” way (and by right I mean efficiently and with the help of search engine optimization). Before we jump in, I’d like to mention that 80% of job seekers start online so it stands to reason that in order for you to build a healthy quantity of quality applicants, you’re going to want to have a solid online presence. Today, I’m going to walk you through the ins and outs of building a Career Site and how to effectively utilize search engines to do your recruiting for you (did I mention its free?).

I suppose we should start by defining the term “search engine.” A search engine is a tool or device used to find relevant information – the most popular being Google, Yahoo, and Bing. What you may not know however, is that Twitter functions as a search engine as well and is considered an “untapped” resource to HR Professionals when used properly.

I’ll give you a quick overview of how search engines work: firstly, they index the pages of their websites and use a “crawler” to match keywords contained on the site with what the user typed into the engine’s search field using a math equation. It includes parsing through your page (or in this case your job ads) title, meta-content, headings, content, alt tags, page ranking, external linking, internal liking, and your page’s code structure. I realize I just dumped a lot of “technical” terminology on you which can be pretty elusive.

In order for you to take full advantage of these “crawlers” finding your job ads, you’re going to need to design the content/structure to appeal to them by doing a few key things: most importantly, you absolutely need a career site (yes you still need it even if you don’t have any current openings). The second tidbit of information I’ll share that’s crucial is assigning each open position to an individual link (page) on your career site. This not only helps both you and your job seeker by keeping multiple openings organized and specific, but it means that you have more content available to your crawler so you’re more likely to be “seen.” It would also benefit you to create an XML/RSS feed for your pages and you can do this free using Google Webmaster Tools. This can also be a somewhat complex process if you’re not well-versed in Google Analytics so I would suggest enlisting the help of your IT, Marketing Department, or using a hiring software like ApplicantPro to do the all the work for you.

Majority of what we discussed today is generalized information surrounding search engines. In my webinar tomorrow, I delve a little deeper into Aggregators as well since most of my clients have expressed being unfamiliar with how they work and how to optimize aggregator specific job ads. Feel free to join me and we’ll journey through the specifics for posting a job ad guaranteed to snag qualified applicants.