You have launched Matador Jobs and are now promoting your jobs on your site. Let’s attract traffic from Google for Jobs Search. Here are some tips to make sure Google for Jobs Search likes your roles.
The Big Idea: Have Unique Job Listings
Google for Jobs Search is not in the business of promoting your job listing, at least at this time. Unlike Indeed and Monster and others, Google does not want the top results to be based on who pays the most, but on what job is the right fit for users’ searches. Therefore, Google appears to combine similar job postings into one listing if it determines each are likely the same, with the singular listing having multiple “Apply on [SITE]” links. This can cause it to seem that your listing is not on Google for Jobs Search.
To combat this, make sure your job listings are unique if at all possible. Here are some tips:
- Mix-and-match descriptive words and exact job titles. “Senior Financial Account” could become “Senior Financial Accountant for Small Team in Dallas-area Startup”
- Write your own job description. Using the copy-and-pasted description from the firm without changes will have you match your competitors.
- Include as much information as possible (within the terms of your engagement contract).
Descriptive Job Titles
As we said in the section above, having a more fleshed out job title is a great idea. You can fit some descriptive words and key concepts for the role in the title and give yourself a leg up. Just be careful, avoid exaggeration and hyperbole or extra-long titles.
For example, a “Senior Financial Account” will be a job title that is used at banks, investment firms, real estate firms, and many sizes of small to enterprise businesses. How can you take this standard job title and explain it more? Would a job seeker prefer to work at a bank or a business? Would a job seeker prefer to work for a large or enterprise company or a small or startup company? Would a job seeker like to know the urgency of the opening?
“Senior Financial Accountant” could become “Senior Financial Account, Accounting Department Supervisor, Start-Up Company, Immediate Need” and catapult you above every other “Senior Financial Accountant” role.
Write Your Own Job Description
We can’t tell you how often we see a user come to us for advice on ranking higher on Google for Jobs Search and find they are using a bare minimum job description. The rules for good SEO for the rest of your site apply to your jobs too, and a well-written description is key. Take your time to update or improve the provided description, or write your own.
- Use headers to organize the description into sections. Bullhorn’s description editor lets you create headers. We recommend using heading level 3
<h3>or heading level 4<h4>depending on your site’s structure and design. - Flesh out bullet points into paragraphs first, and optionally then summarize them later into a brief round of bullet points if desired.
- Especially if they are flexible, be descriptive about educational requirements. “Bachelors Degree preferred, but those with 2 years experience in the industry are welcome to apply.” Invite people in, don’t box them out.
- Emphasize the perks and benefits of the role, especially highlighting work-from-home options, flexibility for family needs, equality in the work space, and total compensation.
- Include notes on company culture. Don’t be afraid to explain how the company offers recreation opportunities, training, clubs/social groups like Women in the Workforce or LGTBQ panels. If the company does on the job training, sends employees to conferences, or offers educational programs, share those as well.
- Discuss the community where the employee will work if they are based out of an office. Explain the neighborhood, the entertainment, the schools, family life, housing affordability, and tax structure.
- Describe the hiring process, including how quickly the applicant can expect a response from you or the employer.
- While all of the above would be awesome, keep in mind to not go overboard and write a novel. Job descriptions should be easily read in under 5 minutes. If you do go for a longer description, be sure to write in an engaging way so applicants are interested.
All of the above tips are rarely provided in a copy-and-paste description from the employer, but can not only guarantee you a unique listing, but one ranked higher than others.
Be Descriptive but Avoid Hyperperbole
Be descriptive in your copy. Use adjectives and adverbs, especially those that communicate urgency when discussing the need and/or hiring process. Avoid hyperbole or unnecessary exaggeration. In fact, Google for Jobs Search developer documentation specifically warns against use of hyperbole and explains your roles may be removed if excessive hyperbole is detected.
Define Jargon and Abbreviations First Before Later Re-Use
Some fields are jargon heavy, and while the job seekers may understand the jargon, Google and other search tools may not. Define your jargon first before freely using it. For example, if you are hiring for an “ER NNP” you may be better off writing “Emergency Room (ER) Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (NNP)” before falling back to use of the abbreviations in the rest of the job listing. This not only stuffs your job description with keywords in the event the job seeker uses the full spelling of the jargon in the search, but it also will create uniqueness that will give you an edge against competitors.
Include More Information, Especially Salary and Location
We at Matador Software are not recruiters and we understand that your industry historically has practices that may go against what we are about to suggest, but the more information you can provide the higher your role will be listed.
- Provide as much information on the location of the job as possible. Who cares if the applicant or competitor can figure out the employer? The applicant may be more interested in applying if they know you are hiring for a well-known storied company and the competitor may well try to steal your listing but your listing is already out there and getting applications; you’ve got the head start.
- State the salary, and better, the salary range. In some jurisdictions, it is now law to list the salary high to low range for a role, and even if it is not, Google allows filtering of roles based on salary or salary range. Over 1/2 of Matador Jobs users hide salary from Google for Jobs Search and on their site and thus receive less traffic as a result.
Use Standard Bullhorn Fields and Terms, or Ask for an Audit
A lot of our users, either due to migrating from other systems or customizing Bullhorn to their firm without realizing the impacts on software like Matador designed for a standard implementation, may use Bullhorn fields differently than Matador expects, and as a result, parts of their Google for Jobs Search structured data is missing or wrong. Some examples:
- Quite a few firms in the past have used custom fields for job category, and or highly specific categorization that is not recognized by Google.
- Many firms implemented some form of “Work From Home” tracking before Bullhorn’s standard implementation for this, which Matador Jobs expects and looks for, was released.
- You can customize the Employment Types in Bullhorn, but Google for Jobs Search only recognizes 9 standard types of Employment Type. Matador does its best, but if you are are using custom terms you may want to have a customized “mapping” code made for your site.
- and more.
If you have a hunch your firm is using Bullhorn fields in uncommon ways, you may want to ask Matador Jobs team to audit your structured your data. This is an above-and-beyond standard support service, and is offered for a flat $499 fee.
Anecdotally: Google Likes Firms That Get Clicks
Anecdotally, we also see that users who get good traffic from Google for Job Search get it for all their jobs even when some have better listings than others. This may be because firms with high engagement have all their roles listed more prominently. Again, Google is in the job of showing the best results, and they learn how to do this by counting the number of clicks that leave their service to you. If you get a lot, why wouldn’t they show more of your jobs? So putting in an early effort, we feel, will pay dividends later on as well!