What is a Job Aggregator?

A job aggregator is very similar to a job board, but it functions in a different way. A job aggregator acts more like a search engine than a job board, which means if your job ad is not keyword dense or doesn't have the right keyword, it's unlikely job seekers will see your job ad. A job aggregator collects job postings from job boards around the internet and consolidates them into one site so they are easily searchable based on keywords and location.

By making minor adjustments to your job listings, you will be noticed by job aggregators, and even more importantly, top talent.

How to Optimize Your Job for a Job Aggregator

1. Make Your Job Ad Keyword Sensitive

Choose the right keyword for the job.

Make sure the keyword you choose is one that will be searched by most job seekers, so that your job ad will be visible to them. For more information about making your job ad more keyword sensitive, check out our great article Job Research.

Make your job listing keyword dense.

Once a good keyword has been chosen, you need to make your job ad keyword dense. Make sure the keyword is included in the job title, and throughout the job description. Make sure it's in there enough that the ad will be visible by as many job seekers as possible so it comes to the top of the search results. That doesn't mean to make every other word in the description the keyword. A 2% density of keywords in your job description should be just enough to get it noticed and at the top of search results.

To calculate keyword density, count up the total number of words in your job ad, then count how many times you use the keyword. Take the keyword number and divide it by the total word count. Convert the quotient into a percentage, and that is your keyword density. For example, say you have a job ad that is 315 words. The number of times you used the keyword was 12 times. So take 12, divide it by 315 and you get 0.038. Convert that into a percentage (2 decimal points to the right) and you get a 3.8% keyword density. This is a good density to aim for. You don't want every other word in your job ad to be the keyword, but getting it in there just enough will make sure it gets picked up by job aggregators and seen by job seekers.

2. Choose the Right Location

In a lot of our articles, we talk about how important it is to advertise your job positions in the right location. Location is often the number one thing job seekers look for when they are searching for a job. Everyone wants a job that is close to where they live.

If your company is located in a lesser-known area, don't use that location to advertise your job. The whole idea of advertising your position on job boards is to generate more applicants. In order to generate more applicants, the location should be entered as the closest metropolitan area to the true job location. By using the closest metro area, more applicants will be able to see your job, and it will come up in more searches on job aggregators.

There are lots of things that come into play when advertising your job on job aggregators, as well as most job boards. For more ways to generate more applicants and optimize your job board check out one of our past articles titled 10 Things Not to Include in Your Job Ad.

How to Advertise with a Job Aggregator

There are three different methods to advertise with a job aggregator. You can use this past article for reference, but for purposes of this article, I'll restate them here.

1. Mass Push from other Job Boards

Many job boards allow you to advertise your jobs to a multitude of other job boards at the click of a button. This mass push includes job aggregators. Job aggregators will pull from other job boards and advertise jobs within the aggregator.

This is a useful tool, and offered by many paid job boards like ZipRecruiter and Monster, however it doesn't give you much control over what content appears on the job aggregator. This is why the keyword is important, not just for job aggregators but for all job boards. If your job ad is keyword dense with what job seekers will be searching for, more job seekers will see your job on both the job board you advertised, as well as job aggregators.

2. Job Aggregator Pulls from Your Career Site

The second method is to give the aggregator permission to pull jobs directly from your career site. This is an easy way if you want to push all of your jobs to the job aggregator and get them seen by as many applicants as possible, in very little time. But, like the first method, you have little control over what gets pulled and how it appears on the aggregator website.

Using this method means you may miss out on applicants because you don't have control over the keyword the aggregator uses or the location. These are the two most important things that could help you get more applicants for your jobs.

3. Push Your Jobs Using an XML Feed

The third and best way to advertise your jobs with a job aggregator is to push your jobs using an XML Feed. In basic terms, an XML Feed is an automatic way to push your jobs to an aggregator. It pulls all of the information you deem necessary beforehand, like the keyword, location, description, etc., and once it's all set up and ready to go, you push a button and off it goes to be advertised.

ApplicantPro uses an XML feed to advertise all of our clients' open jobs to the several job aggregators including two of the largest, like Indeed, and SimplyHired. We have found that this is the most effective method to generate applicants on job aggregators, because it gets all of your jobs in front as many applicants as possible, with the information that you want advertised. This sounds fairly technical and it can be on the back end, but ApplicantPro makes it simple for our front end users. You simply select the job boards and aggregators you would like your jobs to be pushed to and then click to send them. Once the job is closed in the system, the job openings are removed from the aggregators and job boards for you as well.

Keep in mind that not all feeds are the same, and not all aggregators are the same. When you choose which job boards and job aggregators to advertise on, make sure you optimize your job enough so that it will be seen by as many applicants as possible.

Learn more about how ApplicantPro can help you advertise your job listings.