How Google for Jobs Will Impact the Recruitment Industry

In June of 2017, Google launched Google for Jobs, an index of job listings. While some competing job boards frustrate users with outdated or repeat posts, Google’s sophisticated technology weeds out the junk, only listing up-to-date posts and not including repeats. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that the company created the service so that Americans had an efficient way to find work, and the company wanted to address talent shortages that 46% of U.S. employers reportedly face when filling positions.

“While job seekers may be looking for openings right next door – there’s a big disconnect here…We want to better connect employers and job seekers through a new initiative, Google for Jobs,” Pichai said at a tech conference in May.

Already, users have expressed a positive response to Google for Jobs, and the technology is sure to innovate the job-search field just as Google’s other services such as Calendar, Gmail, and Maps have done. As the service gains even more momentum, some people in the recruitment industry have asked how Google for Jobs will change the field, and it appears that the main change will involve search engine optimization (SEO).

What Is Google for Jobs?

Google created an aggregate that searches the internet for jobs that are listed on social media, websites, and job boards. Google’s artificial intelligence then classifies and sorts those jobs and organizes them so that job-seekers can find work.

For instance, employers can post a job through the job posting service EmploymentCrossing.com, and EmploymentCrossing.com will distribute that job to over 600 job boards, including Glassdoor, Facebook, and Ziprecruiter. Google’s technology will then index these listings, and when candidates use Google for Jobs, they will appear in their searches.

Google for Jobs is available in English and in every city and small town in the United States. The service has positions ranging from entry-level to management, and the jobs include white collar positions, blue collar positions, service jobs, and more. Because Google for Jobs is an aggregator, you cannot post directly to Google. You must list your job on a third-party site.

To access Google for Jobs, candidates simply type something like “attorney jobs” or “jobs near me” in the Google search bar, and a blue box will then appear on their browser. From there, candidates can click on Google for Jobs where they can further refine their search by categories such as title, date, or location. Then, when they are ready to apply, they click a link that will send them directly to the job source, which includes company websites and job boards such as Monster, Indeed, or LinkedIn.

What Is a Recruiter?

A recruiter or headhunter is a person who acts like an agent for an employer or potential employee and connects the two parties. Sometimes recruiters are a part of a human resources division of an organization, and sometimes they are a part of a separate company that collects a fee when they play job matchmaker.

Candidates have the option to find their own work and apply with resumes and cover letters, but a recruiter can save time by screening quality job seekers and then matching them with jobs that meet their criteria. Recruiters are also valuable because they can create a personal introduction between a candidate and an employer, and as the saying goes, it’s not what you know but who you know.

Oftentimes, third-party recruiters collect a percentage of the employees’ first year salary, but that money usually comes from the employer, not the employee.

How Will Google for Jobs Impact the Recruitment Industry?

For years, job listings have been available online, and recruiters have used the internet to find qualified candidates for their employer clients. With the launch of Google for Jobs, this search can be even more convenient for all parties involved, but the main change that recruiters face is that they’ll have to pay even more attention to the way internet ads are written and they are more likely to receive an increased amount of applications than before.

While companies may have been more concerned with trendy “buzzwords” in the past, job listing writers must now worry about search engine optimization (SEO), which is the process of maximizing the number of visits to a page. To create SEO, writers use popular words or phrases in their content so that potential job seekers can find the pages. This is important because the more traffic a page gets, the better ranking it has on a search engine like Google.

For recruiters, optimizing job listings will be important to not only bring traffic but to bring the correct traffic. For instance, if a listing states that a “coder job” is available, this could bring in medical billing coders or computer engineers. While Google for Jobs has sophisticated technology to sort out the two, it is wiser and more efficient for the job listing writer to be as precise and SEO-friendly as possible in order to stand out amongst the competition.

To learn key SEO phrases, there are tools available such as Google Analytics that can tell people what words are being searched for, where those searches are coming from, and other useful marketing data. With Google for Jobs, learning web analytics is no longer for marketers. It’s for recruiters too.

The second big change that Google for Jobs will bring to the industry is an increased amount of applications to a single job listing. While choice is a good thing, too much choice can be time-consuming and daunting. Some companies already use software to scan resumes for “buzzwords,” and while this can make the process go faster, it can also weed out qualified but perhaps unconventional candidates. One solution to this problem of how to find the cream of the crop is to include a quiz as part of the online submission. Some companies have already been doing this, and they’ve used quizzes that ask candidates about what they would do in certain situations or what kind of experience they have had to see who matches what they’re looking for. Oftentimes, these quiz answers can give a far better picture of a candidate than what is written on a one-sheet resume.

What Aspects of Recruiting Will Google for Jobs Not Change?

The internet has made it easier to find jobs and candidates, but one thing that an algorithm cannot do is figure out whether or not the humans involved in the job search are actually compatible. That’s where a skilled recruiter comes in. He or she must be able to read and match people just as well as he or she must know how to read incoming resumes. That human touch can never be replicated by a machine, and that’s why recruiters will always be an important part of the job search process.

Employers can also continue to use job posting services such as EmploymentCrossing.com to distribute their listings to hundreds of boards across the web. This service is ideal because in one step, employers can have their listing posted on over 600 boards, enabling them to reach as many people as possible. For more information about EmploymentCrossing.com, click here.

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