And yet there are many recruitment websites that don’t advertise any jobs, even if they have a jobs page with search functionalities all set up and ready to bring in candidates. In this Deep Dive I’ll look at why recruiters might not use their website to advertise jobs and the reasons we believe all agencies should utilise the power of their website to attract talented candidates, plus how to leverage that power to optimise their jobs and increase relevant traffic to them.
Why some recruiters might not advertise jobs on their website
To be completely honest with you, this is a head scratcher for me so I’d love to hear your feelings on the matter and reasons why you or recruiters you know don’t advertise jobs on their website. However, it wouldn’t be much of a deep dive without trying to figure out why some don’t so I did some research and these are some of the reasons I found:
Lack of the right technology
Much of my research pointed to a lack of the right integrated technology, such as a multi-poster. Without a job multi-poster, advertising on your website as well as on job boards is another task that’s easy to forget. With a multi-poster, it’s just a matter of ticking the relevant box. What is crucial for speed and ease is integrated technology – whatever you choose for your tech stack – that can get your jobs to your website with the least amount of hassle.
Perceived ineffectiveness compared to job boards
Some recruiters take the opinion that they’ll never compete with the marketing power of the big job boards and aggregators and therefore there’s no point even trying. These agencies instead focus their websites on delivering quality content and insights, as well as providing information about the agency and their people. All of this is undeniably important and I would wholeheartedly advocate for all recruitment agencies to include and update such content but that doesn’t have to be at the exclusion of their jobs. At the risk of citing a massive cliché, you’ve got to be in it to win it! Creating further visibility to your jobs is also creating another pathway to your website, where candidates will be able to get to know you, read your content, maybe even register their details or sign up for job alerts.
Confidential roles
There are certain roles, in certain industries, that require the utmost of discretion and for that reason recruiters won’t advertise them at all. Instead, they’ll turn to the talent pool that they spend a considerable time building and nurturing. But these occurrences are niche and certainly not reflective of most agencies, clients or jobs. And if you’re going to go down this route, you really do need to spend a sizeable amount of time building relationships with people you know have the required skills and experience to do these specialised jobs.
The huge benefits of posting jobs to your recruitment website
- Free advertising – You likely spend a decent chunk of your recruitment marketing budget on job board advertising – which, as long as you select those job boards carefully and post to them, at the right times, we absolutely agree with. However, when you advertise on your website there’s no additional spend – once you have a recruitment website, it’s essentially a free platform on which to advertise your jobs. Your website plays an important part in your overall recruitment strategy, which will be made up of many different parts. The huge benefit of this part is that it can provide free, organic traffic to your jobs.
- Providing candidates with what they want to find – The majority of candidates accessing your website will be searching for one thing – a job. If they land on your website, like what they see but can’t find a way to access the jobs you’re advertising, there’s a good chance they’ll leave and find their way to a competitor’s website. Give candidates what they want with a well set-up jobs page, including filterable jobs listings to make finding relevant jobs easy.
- Extra control over the candidate experience – If candidates are applying for jobs on your website, you can be in complete control of the candidate experience right from the very start of the process. Providing a positive candidate experience from the moment they land on your jobs page will encourage candidates to begin the application, prevent them from dropping out before they submit, and inspire trust in them that your agency will help them find the perfect job, enabling you to built stronger relationships.
- Increased traffic to your website – Advertising jobs on your website will generate increased candidate traffic to it. Even if candidates don’t end up applying for a job they might explore your website further. Analysis from the RecWebs team found that visitors to individual job ad pages on recruitment websites go on to search for other job adverts or the login/registration page (to apply or set up a job alert). They might also navigate to your news and articles page or the About Us page. The point is, any visit to your website, for any reason, can spark further interaction – even if the visitor doesn’t immediately apply for a job.
- Unique candidate capture – The details of candidates that apply to your jobs via a job board will be stored in a shared database that anyone who pays for access can find and use. Candidate CVs from applications through your website can be stored in your secure database, allowing you to build and nurture your own unique talent pool. In any market, talent pools are invaluable, allowing you to directly source suitable candidates quickly and reducing the cost that other search methods incur.
- A niche audience – As long as you’re optimising your adverts to ensure relevancy, advertising jobs on your website will bring candidates to you that are niche to the industry you recruit in. This is how you start to build a niche community of candidates that have the right skills for your jobs, even if they don’t immediately apply for a particular job or if they are unsuccessful on their first application. If you’re also providing insightful and helpful content in the form of blogs and news articles, you’ll capture their attention further and they are likely to keep returning.
How to optimise your jobs to boost candidate traffic
The majority of job searches start on Google so optimising your jobs so that they show directly on Google for Jobs can significantly increase your chances of finding the right candidate. Google for Jobs can be an insanely valuable source of organic candidate applications – the way they’re set up, candidates can view your advert from within Google for Jobs and then click to apply through your website, driving traffic to it. And yet RecWebs research has found that, of the recruitment websites that advertise jobs, nearly 50% don’t optimise their jobs for Google for Jobs.
So, how can you optimise your jobs so that they appear on Google for Jobs in searches? All jobs listed on your website should have structured data added to them in order for Google to know that they are job postings and therefore be found by Google for Jobs. In order for Google to find your jobs and rank them in relevant searches, there are several details that must be included in your job listings. These include salary, location, job title, job description, company name, and job expiry date.
You can check whether the jobs posted on your website are correctly displayed on Google for Jobs by logging into your Google Search Console account if you have one to check for any ‘critical’ issues. It’s also important to use and update sitemaps and make your web pages indexable.
Think like a candidate
Ultimately, you need to put yourself in the candidate’s shoes. If you were a jobseeker – and most of us have been – how would you go about searching for a job? I would definitely begin online and probably on Google. Advertising your (Google for Jobs optimised) jobs on your website will mean that relevant, qualified candidates who have specifically searched for jobs like yours will be more likely to find them and advertise through your website.
When formulating your recruitment advertising campaign, you’ll be considering where your candidates are searching for jobs and Google should definitely be on that list. Yes, ads listed on job boards will show up in Google for Jobs too but directing a candidate to your website should be the priority.
Having a recruitment website without an active jobs page is a bit like owning a high street shop where people can only browse and not buy your products. Your website offers a free way to advertise your jobs, bringing in traffic that may or may not immediately convert but that has now been introduced to your agency, giving you a chance to show off your brand. Any perceived disadvantages to advertising jobs on your website are far outweighed by the myriad advantages. So go on, max out the ROI of your website and get your jobs on there
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