This new job search engine is supposed to make the application process a lot easier for applicants, knowing Google collects vacancies on the web and provides you with all the necessary information about the job opening and company. Is your organization ready for this?
Although Google For Jobs is not yet active in Africa (it is in the United States), a lot of people already speak highly of this new job search engine. The first results are also positive: “the first test results lead to 18% more applicants”. We have listed a couple of benefits of Google For Jobs:
1. You don’t miss a vacancy
If we are to believe Google For Jobs, you will not only see the vacancies with the exact job title that you searched for. It also integrates advanced Google tools which enables job seekers to find positions closely matching their preferences. This way, a job seeker does not have to look for the right job by searching on different job titles. Besides, there might be a few vacancies in your search results with job titles that you didn’t think of but match.
2. One platform
Google For Jobs collects vacancies from different sites. This way, a job seeker does not have to log in/log out on different job sites. Similar to the big job boards, a job seeker can narrow his/her search with their preferences. Google is partnering with (job) sites such as CareerBuilder, Monster, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Facebook. Note: one of the big sites in recruitment does not (yet) parent with Google for Jobs: Indeed. The odds that Indeed will join Google for Jobs is not that big, because they see Google more as a competitor.
3. The big picture
Aside from the vacancy text, you can see even more information compiled by Google. You can see the company’s rating on Glassdoor (and other job-related websites), have a link to the company’s website, and more job openings from the company. Google For Jobs even shows data about the salary indication for the job, even if no salary indication is included in the job description.
This makes Google For Jobs a platform, where a job seekers can retrieve all the valuable information they need instead of hopping from site to site. No more going from one site to the other to find the perfect job, but one platform with all the required information. Not only is this more efficient, but it also saves time.
It is now, more than ever, important to have a good (online) Employer Branding. What do people say about your organization online? If it turns out the way Google For Jobs indicates, this will all be available to job seekers in a glance. It is still not quite clear when Google For Jobs will be active in Africa, but it is expected to go live in the first half of 2018. Is your organization ready?
How job descriptions get on Google
First, a quick intro to this new candidate-focused job search engine. If you’ve ever looked up flights, restaurants, or even recipes on Google, you’ve come across rich search results.
The Google search
engine works in the same way. When a candidate types in job search keywords,
such as “marketing jobs in London”, one of the search results is a link to the
Google Jobs Search Engine.
The information in
that enriched search result comes from two sources:
- Platforms that have partnered with Google,
like Glassdoor, Linkedin, Monster, Direct Employers, iCIMS, Glassdoor,
JazzHR, Madgex, ZipRecruiter... to mention a only a few.
- Job postings on HTML pages that are built
in a way that google can recognize and index in the job search engine.
Therefore, your job
descriptions need to either be set up the right way, with what is called “structured data”, or to at least be published on one of the
partner platforms. While your team can usually manage the latter, you might
want to involve your organization’s IT department with the former. Just make
sure to share these guidelines with them beforehand.
How to rank high on Google Jobs Search Engine
The ranking algorithm
of this search engine will likely try to reward companies who provide the best
experience to job searchers, the same way Google’s general search engine
rewards accurate, detailed, and useful content.
This means including
all the details below somewhere on the page, in addition to the role
description itself and the usual company overview, even if they might be
obvious to the candidate:
- Company name
- Job contract type
- Date posted
- Job location- with a detailed address
- Subheadings of each section of the job
description (such as responsibilities, requirements, company overview…)
- Salary information & job Benefits
- Deadline for applying
Better SEO, more clicks
A big change brought
on by this job search engine is the necessity to think about job descriptions
the way marketers think about online content. Job postings have to take into
consideration the demands of SEO and the unconscious behaviors of candidates
online.
Before starting to
write a job description, do a quick survey of what keywords the competition is
using to describe the role. Ensure you’re using the most popular variations
throughout your copy.
Subheaders usually
rank content higher on Google when they contain relevant keywords, and Google’s
Job search engine seems to reward well-formatted job descriptions, so you could
re-emphasize your keyword in each subheader, for example: “Marketing Content
Manager key skills”, “What does the Marketing Content Manager do?”, while
making the whole description better organized. Two birds, one stone.
Another good piece of
guidance is to keep in mind how candidates will read search results on the job
search engine. Shorter job titles of an average of 20 characters, with
important information in the first or second word, get more clicks.
Why details matter on the Google job search engine
The job search engine filters jobs based on detailed information such as date posted, salary range and company type.
Think of all the
filtering options offered. Does your job description contain information
detailed enough to trigger all of those filters?
Job searchers are able
to look at jobs filtered by location through
Google Maps, for example, so a specific address for the posting is
necessary. Be similarly specific about things like seniority level, full-time
vs part-time, and industry, for example. This level of detail is definitely
necessary because, for jobs appearing on multiple sites, Google will link to
the most complete one.
Candidates also have
the possibility of setting up alerts for specific jobs, so they can get
notified when a new job is posted. If you have an iterative hiring process in
place, perhaps through an agile
recruiting cycle, then you can take advantage of what you learn from
earlier iterations to replace existing postings with better one. Don’t just
mindlessly repost the same descriptions to appear multiple times in candidates
notifications- that will just irritate candidates.
Google Job Search Engine: AI, AI everywhere
Because it’s Google,
AI and Machine Learning are of course involved. How does that affect
recruiters?
Mostly, as Google’s
Machine Learning algorithms observe how candidates search for jobs then click
on links, the search engine will slightly adapt what keywords yield what
results. Where only “Content marketing manager” showed your job descriptions
before, new search queries like “working in content marketing” might start
showing job postings as well. If your competition includes these keywords and
you don’t, your ranking will suffer. This is something you can monitor manually
for now, but keep an eye out: keyword monitoring tools that are specific for
Google Jobs are sure to crop up soon enough.
Writing job descriptions: Not just for machines
Recruiters need to
cater to the requirements of google’s algorithm for sure, but this doesn’t mean
they are suddenly excused from making job descriptions attractive to candidates
as well. As usual with any content that is part of the candidate’s journey, we
still need to write job descriptions that are informative, targeted, and on
brand.
Tone and wording can
convey a lot. The same task can be described in ways that appeal to different
candidates, depending on the focus it is given:
"You’ll be
expected to collaborate with your colleagues on candidate communications to
ensure the candidate experience is genuine and relevant - formal, centered on
candidate experience"
OR
"You will keep
your teammates in the loop so no one is left out of candidate conversations,
and the hiring process is as efficient as possible- informal, focused on
teamwork and efficiency"
The excerpt below is an example of how to optimize job description copy for search engines without murdering its readability and attractiveness for human candidates.
It includes specific
keywords for the role, and detailed information about the day-to-day job, but
also highlights personal values that the team is looking for, all in a
conversational tone that reflect the company culture.
No job description
template can universally work for all companies, but with the introduction of
the Google Jobs Search Engine, we’ll definitely see a standardization of the
information available in job descriptions going forward. If recruiters want
jobs to rank high enough for candidates to see them, they will have to conform
to these new standards.
And all in all, this
added transparency can only benefit both parties: candidates will know more
about the companies and jobs they’re applying to, and in the long terms,
companies will only receive applications from candidates who are the right fit
for them.