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Improve Your Hiring Process: Manage Your Applicant Pipeline Effectively

Now that you’ve made candidates aware of your position, leveraged contacts to draw applicants, and have gone through the process of thinning the initial herd of applicants, perhaps the most important part of the hiring process begins. Now is the time to dig deeper and take applicants through your remaining steps to hire.

If your hiring process is very short and compact, keeping track of applicants as they go through it likely isn’t much of a challenge. However, this is pretty rare. More often than not, the biggest complaint I hear from organizations is how cumbersome it is to know who’s where in their hiring process at any given moment in time.

Smart Workforce Planning

When you think about it, it’s not much different than than managing a sales pipeline. Since sales are the lifeblood of most organizations, lots of dollars and time are devoted to making sure all necessary team members internally know what new sales are in what stage of the pipeline. Knowing where applicants are in your pipeline is every bit as critical. This allows your organization to plan when certain positions may be filled, what type of background finalists have that may (or may not) work with the team to which they’ll be assigned, what additional dollars may be needed to secure your selected applicant for a given position, etc. In other words…it’s a big deal.

The Downfalls of Tracking Applicants Manually

The challenge for most organizations in the market we encounter (50-1,500 employees) is that this must be tracked manually. Sometimes this is done with paper folders that include an applicant’s resume, physical application, phone screen & interview notes, etc. Other times, applicants are logged into a spreadsheet and categorized by how far along in the process they are.

The paper folder approach accomplishes the objective of keeping most of the relevant information for the applicant in a single place. On the other hand, using this process makes it nearly impossible to keep track of any reasonable number of applicants at a given time, especially if you have multiple openings simultaneously. One other significant drawback is the scenario where one hiring manager needs to review an applicant’s information, but the file is with another hiring manager.

The spreadsheet option is the preferred option, but presents challenges. Chief among those are:

who maintains the spreadsheet — one master administrator, each person who participates, etc.?
how often is it updated?
where are notes for candidates kept? who has access to it?
what happens to candidates who look good, but aren’t hired? How are they considered when the same or similar positions open up down the road?

A final point to consider is that in either of the above scenarios, it is very difficult to protect your employment brand — as referenced in my last blog in this series. Trying to keep applicants updated on their current status, notifying them when the position has been filled, etc. is possible, but requires more time/effort than most organizations are willing to devote.

Applicant Tracking System Benefits

For this part of your process (assuming you hire more than a handful of people per year), using applicant tracking software should be a huge benefit. Applicants are now consolidated in a single data pool, where they may be accessed by those hiring managers and leaders you determine. In addition, you now have the capability to see who has made what notes, what applicants have been moved to different points in your unique process, and easily reference them when similar positions open up down the road. Finally, this also dovetails nicely with the objective of protecting your brand.

Managing your process more effectively allows you to repeat that process more consistently. This continuity, in turn, will improve your hiring results — leading to better employees who stay with you longer.

To see how our ExactHire’s applicant tracking system can help your organization manage the applicant pipeline, schedule a live demonstration.

Image Credit: Traroth (Own work) CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

5 Ways to Use Video in Your Recruiting & Hiring Process

in Hiring Process/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

Looking for ways to spice up your company’s recruiting brand? Check out this quick list of five ways to use videos in your recruiting and interviewing processes. Then, start converting more of your career site visitors into actual applicants, and eventually, new and engaged employees.

1 – Highlight Videos on Your Company’s Careers Portal

This may be the most obvious and already widely used idea; however, it just might be one of the most effective for engaging your site visitors to stay on your pages longer. A wide variety of subject areas can be covered on the branded careers portal available through your applicant tracking system (ATS). Videos might focus on the following topics:

Testimonials given by current employees about why they enjoy working at the company
Highlights from various company events and charitable projects to demonstrate the company culture to potential applicants
Informational videos about the city or region in which your business resides – this is particularly helpful if you do a great deal of nationwide searches for candidates and relocate new employees to your area

2 – Make Your Confirmation Emails Memorable & Informational

These days it can be very difficult for even medium-sized businesses to personally respond to each individual that submits an employment application. As a result, its quite common for organizations to use their ATS to set up auto-generated email responses whenever a new application is received. These are critical as they confirm to the applicant that his/her submission was successful, and they can greatly reduce the number of phone calls received by applicants who want to check on the status of their application. However, even though personalization strings can be used in these email templates, how exciting is email text for the applicant who is anxious to learn more?

In your email message, why not embed or link to a video that your company has created to explain the steps involved in the hiring process:

In the intro, thank the applicant for his/her interest in your company.
Explain how long it might take to process all applications for the position and when responses are generally sent to inform applicants of next steps.
Describe the different interview phases that are usually involved in the hiring process – including time intervals between each phase as well as who is generally involved from the company.

Not only will applicants be impressed that you have created a video for this step, but they will come away from the experience with more information about what to expect — without additional effort from your recruiting staff.

3 – Embed Video in Job Descriptions in Your Applicant Tracking System

When adding a new job listing to your ATS, embed code from your video hosting website to feature relevant videos from right within your job description. In this scenario, videos focusing on your office or field environment, and/or interviews with other employees in the same position or department would be well received. ExactHire applicant tracking system even has a designated field allowing video embed code to be pasted in when adding a new job description.

R+L Truckload & Global Logistics in Fort Myers, Florida, is a big believer in incorporating video into the organization’s job listings. Many different employees have roles in the videos it has produced. Here’s how one of its videos appears within the ATS on a recent job description:

And, check out their video:

4 – Insert Safety Videos Into Employment Application & Survey Applicants

If certain positions available in your organization require heeding important safety procedures or following certain protocols, then consider the benefits associated with embedding a video for applicants to watch during their employment application submission. This can be a powerful way of better qualifying your applicants for a position that normally attracts a high volume of application submissions – especially if many of the submissions have traditionally been from people who aren’t qualified or truly engaged in the role.

A short video might discuss certain steps that are followed as a regular part of the job. In the application, ask applicants to watch the video and then answer a series of short questions about the video. Serious applicants who want to work for your organization will watch the video and then answer the questions correctly. Candidates who are just applying for anything and everything will hit the video speed bump and think twice about taking the time to finish. For those candidates who do answer the questions, utilize scoring and/or disqualification filters in your ATS to rank applicants based on the number of questions they answered correctly.

5 – Video Resources for Long Distance Interviewing

There are times when it isn’t practical or cost-effective to interview candidates in person. Luckily, a number of affordable (and in some cases free) tools are available to enable organizations to video conference with applicants. Companies that conduct nationwide searches for specific positions can especially benefit from the modern convenience of interviewing applicants on-screen. Applications such as Skype, Google Hangouts, FaceTime, and GoToMeeting are just a few that can meet this need.

Take it a step further and record the video interview to make it available to other managers who are unable to participate in the interviewing process. Or, reference the recorded session to remind yourself of interviewee answers when you are comparing final candidates and near making an offer.

Image Credit: Indianapolis at Night by Rob Annis

Improve Your Hiring Process: Protect Employment Brand

in Hiring Process/by Jeff Hallam

The importance of branding is often overlooked when talking about efficiency and technology in the hiring process. There’s definitely a parallel here with my last blog about comparing apples to apples in the hiring process, where I covered the importance of data in both day-to-day business and in recruiting. The same concept applies to branding. Organizations (both large and small) are very conscious of branding themselves to customers and partners. This same focus should be spent on branding to potential employees, i.e. applicants, as well.

As a quick aside, taking this philosophy to heart is especially critical to organizations whose applicants are (or may be) clients. Retail providers, hospitality, restaurants, financial institutions, etc. are just some of the industries where this applies.

Easy Peasy Employment Branding

There are some very simple steps to take in terms of employment branding. Below are the key ones I stress to our clients:

Make your career site welcoming and informative (maybe go for a different look than this blog’s photo!) — use the same look and feel as the rest of your overall website. Be sure to share information that will help applicants see the benefits of working in your organization. Make it clear how they can find your openings and apply for those positions.
Make it easy for applicants to apply for multiple jobs — either at the same time or over a period of time. Avoid forcing them to start from scratch for each job.
Leverage social media so that applicants can “follow” you and be kept abreast of new jobs as you post them. Statistics overwhelmingly confirm that hoping applicants will return to your site on their own to seek new openings isn’t a great answer.
Take advantage of social media relationships that exist within your current employee ranks. While it’s important to allow applicants to stay connected with you, engaging your current employees’ social contacts can drive more “passive” applicants to your site. In turn, these folks may choose to follow you or share your jobs with others. Either way, you’re improving brand recognition and expanding reach — all at no hard dollar cost to you.
Confirm with applicants that you’ve received their application submission and let them know what to expect from there. If an applicant tracking software tool is in place, this should be very easy to do. If not, develop an email template that may be used for this purpose.
Be timely with feedback to applicants about where they are in your process. Again, if you use an applicant tracking system, this should be pretty easy. In our solution, for instance, you can actually do this for groups of applicants at a time vs. each one individually. If you’re managing candidates in your email folders or in spreadsheets, this may still be done with email templates.
When a position is filled, take the time to reach out personally to those finalists not selected. Ideally, do this by phone. First off, it’s the right thing to do. Just as importantly, leaving these finalists with a positive impression keeps the door open if other opportunities arise down the road.

Be sure to tune in for my next blog in this series about managing your candidate pipeline effectively.

Previous blogs in Improve Your Hiring Process series include:
Improve Your Hiring Process: Thin the Herd
Improve Your Hiring Process: Compare Apples to Apples

Image credit: Welcome by alborzshawn (contact)

Improve Your Hiring Process: Compare Apples to Apples

in Hiring Process/by Jeff Hallam

Now that you’ve narrowed your initial list of applicants to a more manageable number, it’s time to look at those remaining candidates in more detail. So, what’s the best way to do this? As with the first step of your candidate management process (see my prior blog: “Improve Your Hiring Process: Thin the Herd”), you have options.

Resume Review: Are You Getting the Info You Want?

Let’s look at how this has typically played out to this point. For most recruiters or hiring managers, this is commonly the time to examine resumes in much greater detail. As a result of this review, live interviews are scheduled for the “best” candidates. But…how do you know these are the “best”?

It’s not that resumes are bad or evil — they aren’t. In fact, they contain lots of good information about applicants. At the same time, there’s lots of information they don’t contain, too. Some applicants tell you way more than you really care to know. More often, they may not tell you enough. Think about whether or not most resumes you review answer these questions:

Why are they interested in a position with your firm, in particular?
What specific skills do they feel they bring to the table (as they relate to your available position)?
How did they hear about your opportunity?
What were their start/end dates with prior employers? Are you able to obtain references from those prior employers if you get to that point in the process?

My Resume is Better Than Your Resume

The other challenge with resumes is that we tend to look at them very subjectively. If two applicants have very similar backgrounds/qualifications, but one has a much more physically attractive resume, it becomes an easy tiebreaker. On the other hand, what if the candidate with the more attractive resume paid to have it done by a professional? What if one applicant is better with Microsoft Word…but that isn’t necessarily critical to success in this job? You probably see where I’m going with this.

Finally, resumes promote inefficiency. Because each applicant is trying to outdo the next, resumes tend to be very different. When you start trying to compare candidates to one another, it becomes difficult to recall why one looked better than another.

The simple fact is that resumes create bias. It’s become an arms race to see who can put together the resume with the best keywords and eye-pleasing layout. In my opinion, that shouldn’t carry as much weight in the process as it does in most cases today.

The question, then, becomes…how do you really compare apples to apples? The answer lies with data. Data is used to make decisions in every facet of our business lives. Why should a process as important as hiring be any different? Resumes contain data, but it isn’t always complete and is often in very different formats. You need complete data in a consistent format to improve results.

Use Application Data to Drive Employment Decisions

“So, what does that mean?”, you may ask. Personally, I favor the use of online employment applications. This trend has been gaining momentum for several years and is used by thousands of organizations (both large & small) across the country. The key is utilizing a solution that allows you to gather what you want the way you want it.

For example, you may want to implement a full application with more information submitted from people applying for entry-level positions — or those positions that tend to generate a higher applicant volume than you’d like. Emailing a resume is easy, so often applicants throw their hat in the ring for these openings, even if they know they’re not really a good fit. This creates additional screening burdens for you. Asking applicants to instead complete an online application for these positions requires just enough effort to ensure they look more closely at the position requirements. In turn, this typically helps to curb the number of unqualified applicants for these jobs.

On the other end of the spectrum, you may want to streamline and/or shorten the online employment application for those positions for which finding qualified applicants is difficult. This scenario provides an excellent opportunity to balance the screening question tips from my “thinning the herd” blog with our topic here of getting consistently-formatted applicant data. If you find yourself with many of these positions, it doesn’t mean an online application won’t work for you. Instead, you may want to choose a solution that allows you to either break the application process into two steps, or one that allows candidates to auto-fill the more mundane sections of the application (employment history, education, etc.) with information from social media profiles like LinkedIn. Either option maintains a very “applicant-friendly” process, while still providing you the consistent data you need to make good hiring decisions.

Regardless of whether you partner with an applicant tracking software vendor for this solution or develop it yourself internally, the end result should be the same. Having your candidate data in a consistent format is another significant step forward in streamlining and improving the overall results of your hiring process.

Be on the lookout for the next blog in my series where I look at the importance of protecting your employment brand.

Could you use an ATS solution to help bring consistent data into your hiring process? Contact us to discuss our applicant tracking system. – See more at: https://www.exacthire.com/improve-your-hiring-compare-apples-to-apples.blog#sthash.lzHQfahv.dpuf

Image credit: Green-Red by It’s All about Rock (: (contact)

How to Write Job Descriptions Optimized for Job Boards and Internet Search, Tip 3

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

What’s in a job’s name? Sometimes…not enough. Particularly, if the job opportunity your company is trying to fill has an über common job title. So common in fact, that its chances of appearing near the top of search results for your intended applicant audience are nil. In my third installment of the “How to Write Job Descriptions Optimized for Job Boards & Internet Search” blog series, I’ll discuss three techniques for giving your job title (and therefore job description) a fighting chance of being seen by the right candidates.

#1 – Research Employers Targeting the Same Applicant Pool

Let’s say that you have a “Project Manager” opportunity within your smaller organization. If your business is small or mid-sized, then it may be sufficient to simply refer to this role as a Project Manager among internal staff members…even if the role is focused on project management within IT security, for example. However, when it comes to pushing your available job listing to external job boards (like CareerBuilder, Monster, Dice, Indeed, etc.), using “Project Manager” as your advertisement title is pretty vanilla and unlikely to put your unique opportunity at the top of the results list for the best-qualified, most engaged applicants for your role.

So, how do you pick an effective and more specific job title that will appeal to individuals who will be a good fit for your role? Start by making a list of other organizations with which you often compete for talent in a given job category. Initially, do a search on the job boards that you intend to use by typing in Project Manager. NOTE: If you do not use quotation marks when you type in this title, then you will see a list of the most relevant (and typically recent) job listing results that include both the words “project” and “manager” somewhere in the job listing…though they may not actually all be “Project Manager” positions. Then, try a Boolean search using “Project Manager” in quotations to see all the job listings that have an exact match to that two-word phrase…these are more likely to be roles that stay true to the keyword phrase. Your two separate search results lists may very well be quite different.

Next, search for job listings posted by your competitors for top talent. What names are they using for their job titles, and on what page of the search results do you encounter these titles? If they are near the top of the list for a keyword search that is likely to be similar to a search done by one of your applicants (check out #2 below to see how your applicants are searching), then your organization should pick the same kind of job title. If their listings are buried in the search results, then don’t mimic their naming technique.

#2 – Reference Keyword Analytics in Your Applicant Tracking System

Odds are that if you are using one of the best applicant tracking systems, you have a treasure trove of analytical information about your careers site visitors at your fingertips. A solid ATS will feature access to in-depth analytics tools…often available through an integration with a product like Piwik or Google Analytics. Within your analytics package, take a look at the data on which keyword phrases are referring traffic to your careers site from different search engines. Take it a step further and see which phrases are resulting in conversions – this typically includes both applications started and applications completed within your applicant tracking software. While you will find that some keywords referencing certain job titles may bring a lot of traffic to your site, that doesn’t necessarily mean that those site visitors find what they are seeking…which would be evident if they bounce and do not start or complete an application.

Look for trends in the reported keyword phrases that do result in completed applications, and then continue to utilize those words in your job titles and descriptions. Or, if some of the keywords reported do not result in conversions but you feel strongly that the tides could change with some minor adjustments, then start incorporating those keywords into actual job description titles. Understand that visitors may be referred to your careers portal because those keywords are present in the body of job descriptions; however, if they don’t see the keywords in a job title once they land on your job openings page, then they may never click through to the description to find them, and then convert to submitting an application.

NOTE: When reviewing your reporting and analytics data, you will only see a subset of all keyword phrases used by applicants as some search engines will restrict sharing the keywords used to refer traffic (for example, Google won’t share keywords used by individuals who are signed into a Google-owned account type while conducting a search).

#3 – Be Descriptive and Double Down on Your Job Title

While it may be not be practical for an employee to have a job title that is more than seven words long on a business card, it’s not a crime to advertise a job listing with a different title than what will actually be used internally once an employee is hired. Going back to our Project Manager example, this two-word title just may not cut it in the search results. However, if you add some more words to the title…like synonyms, location details, certifications required, etc., then your opportunity is more likely to be seen by applicants who have a clear vision of their ideal job.

For example, try “IT Project Manager – Security Analyst Job – Indianapolis” instead of just “Project Manager.” Why? Because search engines and job boards give more weight to titles in search results because they are often denoted by h1, h2 and/or h3 tags — these tags are a more significant part of a site’s source code structure. Also, you are casting a wider net to make other applicants aware of your job…like individuals who don’t necessarily search for project manager but perhaps something similar (like “IT Security Manager,” “IT PMP” or “IT Security Analyst,” etc.).

Secondly, reiterate the title of your job (or even the shortened version – Project Manager) in the first line of your job description. You know from “How to Write a Job Description Optimized for Job Boards & Internet Search, Part 2” that the first lines in the description often make up the snippets of content in search results…which again, are given more weight by search engines and job boards when ranking results. If you’re skeptical, check out the job listing results on Indeed in the image below…notice that the only “Project Manager” results returned for a Project Manager search (without quotation marks) in Indianapolis also have the title in the first line. The job listings that don’t double down on including the title are buried in other pages of results and less likely to be seen by applicants.

Next time you push a job listing to an external source, remember to think carefully about title selection. By researching other employers in your space, incorporating data from your applicant tracking system’s analytics and using keywords appropriately, you will be more likely to improve the response for your job listing.

Improve Your Hiring Process: Thin the Herd

in Hiring Process/by Jeff Hallam

As you might gather from the title above, this is the first blog in a seven-part series about core concepts your organization can use to improve the efficiency and overall results of your recruiting and hiring process. While not the most glamorous topic out there, I think the majority of people involved with recruiting will agree that doing it right, and with as little wasted effort as possible, is critical to the ultimate success of any organization.

To be clear, this blog series isn’t about “process change” or anything nearly that advanced. Instead, I’ll be writing about simple concepts that are easy to incorporate into your existing process and can dramatically improve results. So, off to our first suggestion — thin the herd efficiently.

Screen Employment Applications

I don’t mean to imply that your applicants are a herd of animals, although you may disagree in some instances! However, this analogy holds true for most organizations when you look at what chronically-high unemployment rates have created. We’ve all read the stories about hundreds or thousands of applicants lining up when career fairs are held for new job opportunities. The simple fact is there are a lot of people continuing to look for work, so open positions attract larger volumes of applicants than they did 10 years ago. The “herd” of applicants is typically pretty big depending on the role.

On the one hand, that’s a good thing for you as an employer. There are more options from which to choose and a more diverse pool of potential hires available. On the other hand, it creates a dilemma many of you have encountered…”how do I possibly review all of these applicants for this opening?” That’s usually followed by…”I don’t have time for this AND my actual job!” So, how can you thin the herd?

Screening Questions Are Your Friend

The easiest solution I’ve found is to develop job-specific screening questions for your different positions. While there is initially a little time involved in creating these questions (including making sure they are legal & non-discriminatory), they can allow you to separate the clearly-unqualified job candidates from the possibly-qualified individuals much more quickly than the traditional option of reviewing resumes and applications individually.

It’s possible to do this with existing paper applications or downloadable PDF applications, although these options take away the ability to have the screening done in an automated fashion. Similarly, some of the more prevalent job boards allow you to require applicants to answer screening questions before they can submit their information for your job openings.

More commonly, organizations are looking to automated applicant tracking software tools to help with screening. If implemented properly, web-based recruiting solutions like these can automate this screening process significantly. In many instances, you can automatically “score” applicants’ answers to your unique questions and designate certain responses to mark applicants as not qualified for a given position.

Download our hiring process questions guide

Streamline and Improve the Hiring Process

An applicant tracking system shouldn’t be viewed as a way to “automate” hiring — in an impersonal sense. Rather, it’s merely a tool, that when used properly, can help you quickly identify which applicants merit further consideration for your particular job openings. Once you’ve “thinned the herd” initially, you will then be in a position to focus more time and effort on engaging with the shorter list of qualified applicants moving forward.

Be on the lookout for the next blog in my series where I relate the concept of comparing apples to apples to the recruiting process.

Could you use an ATS solution to help streamline your applicant screening process? Contact us to discuss our applicant tracking system.

Image credit: Stampede by Gopal Vijayaraghavan (contact)

How to Write Job Descriptions Optimized for Job Boards and Internet Search, Tip 2

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

It’s pretty easy to find advice about writing compliant job descriptions, but it can be harder to make sure those same descriptions translate into engaging blurbs on job board search results pages…that is, blurbs or “snippets” that are guaranteed to pique the interest of your potential applicants as they pore over pages of competitive job listings. But, there isn’t a single right away to approach writing job listings for search; in fact, crafting effective, “crawlable” job descriptions for your organization is largely dependent on the labor market for your position, your applicant demographic, organizational culture and whether or not you pay to sponsor your ads on otherwise free boards — such as Indeed. In this second installment of this “How to Write Job Descriptions Optimized for Job Boards & Internet Search” blog series, I’ll specifically discuss how to take a situational approach to writing the first few lines of a job description.

Use Smart Snippets

Let’s start off by looking at some general search results on the first page of a search for jobs in Indianapolis, IN. In particular, examine the snippets (also called meta descriptions) that summarize the first sentence or two under each position title. Unless the author of a web page specifically designates a meta description in the source code, then search engines and job boards will pull the first line or two of body text from your page. In my experience, the latter is the norm in the case of job listing search results.

As you can see, the job listing content included in each snippet varies with position. Whether or not the approach employed by each organization will work depends, again, on the job’s demand, demographic, culture and pocketbook. Take a closer look…

Consider Labor Market for Your Jobs

If sourcing applicants with the right qualifications, and availability to work, for one of your positions is comparable to spotting Sasquatch in your backyard, then you probably have some labor market-related considerations to examine. For example, if your position type is super easy to stumble upon in search results (i.e. there are hundreds with the same job title), and especially if the minimum qualifications do not require advanced professional degrees or experience, then one of your biggest applicant screening filters may be the days and times of the week that individuals are available to work.

With that in mind, the best job listing introduction might be a summary of the shift days and hours, as in the blue highlighted example from our sample search results. This works especially well if the employment application process for this position also includes questions designed to elicit responses from applicants on whether they meet basic minimum qualifications. For example, whether the applicant has the ability to work a certain shift on certain days might be an appropriate question. Ask your applicant tracking system provider about using scoring and disqualification filters on these types of questions to streamline the applicant screening process.

For frequently posted positions where hours aren’t the screening focus, it is good practice to restate the title of the job listing in the first sentence. This technique isn’t as much about engaging applicants as it is about increasing the frequency of desired keywords (more on this in a future post) — see pink highlighted examples. The more often you include the job title and/or similar names (up to a certain reasonable point), the more likely your job listing will rank higher in the list of results for an applicant searching using that keyword.

Know Your Target Applicant Pool

Think about your dream candidate for a specific position. How savvy is he/she at web search? Will he/she think beyond just searching for job titles, and also search for specific duties or required certifications associated with your job listing? Or, even if an applicant won’t necessarily search for those terms, he/she might be more likely to click on your job listing in search results if your snippet displays a reference to an essential job requirement that he/she finds appealing. This is another way to differentiate your listing from other job postings that don’t discuss duties until later in the full job description. So, while the two below listing results are for different types of positions, which one gives you more actual, engaging information about the job at a quick glance? And a glance is often all you have in today’s recruiting landscape…

If you picked the green job listing over the orange one, then you get the recruiting gold star for the day! If you picked the orange one, then check out tips on company summary placement in How to Write Job Descriptions Optimized for Job Boards & Internet Search, Part 1.

Be Snazzy If You Sponsor

As with all aspects of the talent acquisition process, the organizational culture of your company should shape your approach to writing job descriptions, as well. If part of your recruiting brand is to be energetic and fun, then you might want to take a more informal approach to writing the text of some of your job descriptions. Think about the behavioral characteristics of candidates who will thrive in the position that you are posting. Will they be persuaded to click and eventually apply to a snazzier, more tantalizing description of your organization and/or the position? Probably. Most people do aspire to like the work they do, after all. I especially see this approach with sales positions – which makes sense since persuasion is often a coveted skill for a successful business development employee.

However, if you are relying on this approach to carry you to the top of organic (i.e. unpaid) search results on search engines and job boards, make sure you carefully account for the prominence of your organization’s name and how difficult it is to fill this type of position in your decision making process. Take note of the yellow highlighted positions in our search results…one thing they all have in common is that they are sponsored ads and so their placement, or the ease with which someone may apply, earns premium attention. If your strategy or plan for a job posting does NOT include paying for special status, then you’ll likely be more heavily reliant on using relevant keywords and job information in your first few lines of text.

A Parting Thought on Pay

If you didn’t notice already, some of the snippets in our sample search results included information about the compensation for the position. However, that doesn’t always mean that the first few lines of the position description include pay info. In fact, if the compensation information is preceded by an ellipsis (…) in the snippet, then you know that the job board or search engine just appended that information after finding it somewhere else in the full job listing. The job board is really helping you out by displaying your opportunity in such a way that many job-seekers will self-select out of your application process because they have a different income expectation. However, as you consider how your job description preview will appear in search result snippets, know that if you do include salary or hourly wage information in your listing, it will likely appear in the snippet; thus, shortening the text displayed from the beginning of your description.

Now that you are familiar with the different techniques organizations may use to engage potential applicants in the snippet area of search results, it is time to evaluate your own job listings, applicant pool, culture and budget to determine which method will suit your needs. Be on the lookout for future blogs in this series that discuss choosing job posting titles and keywords.

In search of a tool that makes it easy to post job listings to external job boards and search engines? Schedule a live demo of our applicant tracking software (ATS) today!

Help Wanted: Applicants Needed!

in Hiring Process/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

I did some window shopping recently and I saw many “help wanted” signs plastered front and center of doors, cash registers, in yards, etc.

Many signs said, “See Associate” or “Inquire at (insert phone number)”. If you are hiring, chances are your staff is already stretched thin. Is it in their best interest to be talking with potential new hires? Depending on your business, you may hire applicants on the spot in which case this blog may not provide much insight for you.

Take Out the Middle Step

I enjoy making processes efficient. Instead of asking for an applicant to “see associate” to get more details or “inquire at…”, tell the applicant exactly what the other person was going to tell them – “Apply online at our website under careers.” This helps your current employees to be free to do their job and respects the time of your applicant. If you have multiple locations, it would be valuable to create a standard help wanted sign for each of your locations. It can be simple:

HELP WANTED. TO APPLY VISIT CAREERS AT WWW.YOURCOMPANY.COM

This will help your locations to present a standardized company recruitment brand and also avoid the need to have signs similar to those below.

The Sign Did Not Work

Even with a sign directing applicants to apply on your website, there will inevitably be applicants that still inquire with your staff. Some may see this as an applicant that cannot follow direction. I see this as someone with drive, determination, and possibly higher on the scale for social and creative behavioral traits according to some employee assessments. Be prepared. The easiest thing you can do is create an extra set of business cards. Provide a link to your organization’s website or applicant tracking system (ATS) portal on these cards, along with any steps associated with finding your online employment application.

If you have space and resources, the next best thing is to set up a computer/kiosk on-site and allow applicants to apply right then and there. You would need to speak with your IT department about setting up the computer so that only the ATS and/or your organization’s website is accessible. This keeps applicants from lingering and surfing the internet while applying. If you utlilize the on-site apply option, you would want to make sure that the resume upload section of your application is not required or that it is set up as a two-step application. Two step application processes allow HR staff to invite specific applicants who meet minimum requirements to complete additional sections of an application further into the selection process.

While You Have the Applicant’s Attention

Now that the applicant is on your applicant tracking software portal, tell them about your organization. Job descriptions can tell a lot about the organization’s personality and culture. What do your job descriptions say about your organization? How about your application? Does it accurately portray the culture and brand? These two things should entice the type of applicant you are seeking to find. If your organization thinks of its employees as a giant team and expects the perfect applicant to be a team player, this should shine through on the job description and in the application.

Spend some time adding additional pages to your careers site – benefits, testimonials, pictures, etc. These pages tell stories of your organization and the type of people who are employed there. If an applicant is not interested in working within that type of environment, then he/she will likely not apply. Whereas if your ATS does not have additional informational pages, the applicant may make it past the phone interview only to show up and realize at the first face-to-face interview that your organization is not a good fit. The opposite could happen as easily, too.

Time is valuable – your time, your employees’ time, and your applicants’ time – utilize your applicant tracking system’s features and direct all applicant traffic to the careers portal.

Photo Credits:
1 – “Help wanted,” © 2006 Nonsequiturlass, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

3 – “Creative Person,” © 2008 Wade M, used under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

How to Write Job Descriptions Optimized for Job Boards and Internet Search, Tip 1

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

It can be challenging to write a thorough and compliant job description that will satisfy your human resources and legal departments, while at the same time making it…dare I say…sexy enough to cause potential applicants to click through for more information or to apply for your job. After all, most job seekers won’t just know that your company is hiring and think to go directly to your applicant tracking software careers page; in fact, many will see your job listing for the first time on external job boards or previewed in Google SERPs (search engine results pages). You hope they see your job listings there, that is.

If you use the right techniques to write effective, search-friendly job descriptions, then your target audience of applicants will notice your job listings on search engines and job boards like Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder, etc. This blog is the first in a series I’m writing about how to find the happy medium between including must-have job content and optimizing your job listings for search. In this post, we’ll begin to cover the strategy behind the actual words you use in your job descriptions, as well as the order in which you place them.

Reorder Your Job Listing Content

Depending on the size of your organization, the frequency of hiring and/or the brand association with your company name, you may regularly include an “about us” or company overview paragraph in each of your job descriptions. This can be especially true of companies that are a little smaller or less well-known, and is often an area used to showcase the basic info about the product or service of the organization, as well as some commentary about the company culture. Here’s an example:

So while this overview section is often placed at the beginning of a job description, that placement might actually be hampering this job listing’s click-through rate (CTR) from certain sets of search results. For example, search engines will display the first 160 or so characters of a page’s body text (unless a specific meta description has been designated by your webmaster for that page). In the case of the above job description, we see in the Google search results highlighted below that the text displayed is the company overview section – because it was at the beginning of the job description.

For some of your applicants this may not be a big deal, but others will move on to the next search result for a different job that better describes the actual position in the first few lines – this may especially be the case for highly competitive job titles that return many pages of search results.

Examine Search Results Within External Job Boards

So how do the results for this example job listing appear in different job boards?

CareerBuilder:

Indeed:

As you can see, results vary from one board to the next. For example, on CareerBuilder the company overview header is squished ahead of part of the body text. On Indeed, the first few lines of the “Position Overview” section of the job listing are displayed. While this is actually the best scenario because that section should have all the meat, I’m not sure that the most compelling information to attract candidates is the fact that the applicant would be supporting a certain office.

So, why take a gamble on what information will appear in search results for your job listings? Instead, keep the company overview section – but put it at the end of your job listing. Then, write an engaging first sentence that restates your job title and includes relevant keywords to grab the attention of potential applicants as they scan through hundreds of similarly named job title search results. Stay tuned for future blogs in this series discussing keyword use and job titles.

Interested in learning how ExactHire’s applicant tracking software can help optimize your job listings for search? Contact us today to schedule a live demo.