Many professional job seekers start their job search on the Web in Google and Yahoo. Are your jobs showing up in these search engines? Type in a job category relevant to your organization or a position that you hope would surface when candidates do a job search. If your organization or position is not ranking well or does not show up at all, your careers Web site and job postings might not be search engine optimized.
Job boards are no longer the most cost effective way to market open positions. Progressive recruiting organizations cite that by using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, they have reduced job board spending by 50-90%. A number of different factors affect search (members only), including (but not limited to):
- Where key words that candidates search for are positioned on your Web page,
- How well your page is associated with other highly trafficked pages (e.g., your organization Web site), and
- The length of your URL, graphics, and positioning on third party Web sites (e.g., job board aggregators)
Budgets are tight these days. Work with your internal Web team to determine ways you can search optimize your Web site. Some of your peers have revised their job posts using SEO strategies to increase their views in search results. Others have internally created search engine optimized micro-sites to target a specific candidate population (without affecting the core careers site). For those of us with a bit of budget to spare, there are third-party vendor (members only) available to help optimize your job postings through targeted keyword searches.
Whatever your approach might be, consider using SEO as the first step to internet job marketing.
Written by: Xi Chen
Posts
