Good Stuff Happens in 1:1 Meetings: Why you need them and how to do them well
Deam12 seo presentation
1. SEO and Other Best
Practices to Attract
Your Target Audience
Jonathan Liepe
Senior HR Specialist
2. What is SEO?
Why SEO?
What does SEO look like?
Is It Working?
Embedding Videos
Tracking Source Codes
Writing Job Postings
How to Choose a SEO partner
Agenda
3. What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization
Wikipedia:
o “…the process of improving the visibility of
a website or a web page in a search engine's
"natural," or un-paid ("organic" or
"algorithmic"), search results.
o “In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the
search results page), and more frequently a site
appears in the search results list, the more visitors it
will receive from the search engine's users.”
4. Simply stated, SEO is…
Making site structure and content relevant and accessible to
search engines with the goal of improving rankings
What does that mean?
• Follows protocol for accessible site design
• Adheres to best practices for structure & metadata
• Incorporates relevant keywords into content
• Helps search engines understand context (and content) of
the information you're publishing
• Focuses on delivering real value versus short term spam
techniques
9. You want to be found by the right people!
Receive higher search rankings
o Search engines use complex, proprietary
ranking algorithms
o Google uses more than 200 different
signals
o Use Google AdWords or Pay-per-click
campaigns
Be seen by your candidates before they see
your competitors
Take advantage of job seeker behavior:
o Most job seekers start with a keyword
search
10. A Look at the Numbers
Jobvite Survey: Job Seeker Nation 2010
12. SEO Design Considerations
Website Design
o URL
o Keywords, variation and positioning
o Tags – title and H1
o Clear, keyword-rich job URLS
o Descriptive & keyword-rich job title tags
Rich media
o Recruiting videos, podcasts, or other content to engage
job seekers
o Embed videos in Careers pages and Job postings
Easy to Promote
o Shareable content
o Social media
13. Source information
Before SEO…
o No meta data (description / keywords)
o Title and H1 tags
After SEO…
o Meta data (description / keywords) near top
o Title and H1 tags
18. What to Avoid
Some SEO techniques can lead to ranking penalties
"Keyword stuffing"
o Loading your career site with the same keywords
over and over
o Best practice is to diversify the language you're using
Avoid questionable SEO schemes
o Link pyramids
o Blog networks
o Paying for links
o Placing links to your career site on irrelevant sites
o All are considered "black hat"
19. What to Avoid (continued)
Consistency pays off
• Be very careful when making major changes to
your career site, such as the URL, without first
determining how it will affect your SEO and
planning accordingly.
• Recognize that SEO is a long-term investment. It
takes time to build up trust and relevance in the
eyes of the search engines. Ultimately, your
rankings are up to them.
24. Importance of Mobile
Mobile browsing by job seekers is increasing rapidly
Jobs.csu.org mobile traffic:
o Feb - 10.9%
o June - 14.6%
o July – 15.5%
o August – 17.0%
o September – 19.2%
25. Video Further Improves SEO
YouTube is 2nd largest search engine according to Comscore
Adding employment branding videos to our site, in addition
to hosting them on YouTube has yielded increased
engagement on our site and further increased our SEO
visibility.
Video traffic YTD
27. Including Video in Job Postings
Increasing Results and Adding Value for Job Seekers
• Corporate Trainer position historically netted 60-80 or so
applicants
• Hiring Manager wanted to attract a wider, different group
of applicants
• Including the video proved a difference maker
31. Embedding Video
Paste the HTML code
• Videos can be embedded on any page layout
• Options to consider – Job Search, Job Search
Results, Requisition
To center on the page,
• Include <p style="text-align: center;"> before the YouTube
code
• Include </p> after
33. Importance of Source Codes
Why is auto-tracking important?
• When your recruiting advertising dollars are limited, every
dollar counts!
• You need to know where you are finding good people and
which sources to drop.
Study by Jake Firth at AllRetailsJobs.com showed 83% of
candidates incorrectly identify their source
• 50% chose not to identify source or select “other”
• Solution: Implement 'tracking tags‘ - tags append to the
application URL and defaults the source selection
34. Source Codes
Automatic Tracking of Candidate Source
•Candidate source easily defaults using “&source=[insert
source code]” in job URL
•Work with advertising partners scraping your site
•Train recruiters how to add for “one-off” sources
•Example:
• No source code:
https://tbe.taleo.net/NA12/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=
CSU&cws=1&rid=7597
• With Source Code:
https://tbe.taleo.net/NA12/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=
CSU&cws=1&rid=7597&source=linkedin
38. Customize and Engage
Job Descriptions + ATS systems = Disengaged Applicants
• October 2012 Workforce Management - highlights issue of
job descriptions…
•“Managers don’t think through job requirements before inserting them
[into their ATS systems]”
•“Recruiters…might not have the time or expertise to tweak the systems for
a specific department’s needs.”
•“Bigger companies have to work harder because…they receive far more
applicants per job.”
• Are we trying to attract the “right candidate” or dissuade
the “wrong candidate”?
39. “Recruiting is about influencing top candidates who don‘t
need your job to consider it anyway…top people don‘t
look for jobs or accept offers the same way most
candidates do. Since they‘re looking for a better job, not
another job, they want proof that it is better. That‘s why
they need more information. This includes more details
about the job, the company, and the people involved.”
Lou Adler
Adler Consulting
41. Job Postings
Job Titles
• 40% job seekers don’t understand what a job title means in a typical
online posting
• Call to action or “What’s in it For Me?”
• Google’s Keyword Tool -
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Success Profiles not Job Descriptions
• Job description contain list of needed skills / past experience
• Instead…define successful performance!
• What does success look like for the next 1-2 years (and beyond)
Discovery conversations
• Build time into the process to differentiate average from top talent
• Don’t simply accept what your hiring manager says as fact; seek
supporting arguments
44. Partnering to Improve SEO
Why you may need a partner to improve SEO…
• Your ATS is not ranked by search engines
• In some cases, ATS content lives inside an iFrame, making
it inaccessible to search engines
• Even when the content is available, it is generally not
optimized for search engines
• Your ideal partner should focus on messaging and helping
candidates find you, all while working with your existing
recruiting platform
45. How to Choose a Vendor
Things to keep in mind
• Look for experience in SEO and employment branding
• Leverage a partner with a strong URL network (e.g., geo
targeting or industry targeting)
• Consider the power of built-in networks of job-related
sites that link back to your career site (e.g.,
DirectEmployers and .jobs Universe)
• Listen for strong focus on client experience & partnership
• Look for ROI and bundled service level
47. Resources
Adler, L. (2012, May 21). Don't Put the Cart Before the Horse if You Want to Find More Top People.
Retrieved May 22, 2012, from http://www.adlerconcepts.com/index.php/en/resources36/current-
articles2/874-dont-put-the-cart-before-the-horse-if-you-want-to-find-more-top-people
Firth, J. (2006, October 17). ATS Sourcing Data – 83% Inaccurate: Survey of 63,000 Candidate
Applications Confirms Major Flaws in Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Sourcing Information. Retrieved
August 30, 2012, from http://www.allretailjobs.com/html/ats-sourcing.pdf
Indugula, N. (2012, February 21). Recruitment SEO: 10 Steps to A Perfectly Optimized Job Results
Page. Retrieved April 10, 2012 from http://talentminded.com/recruitment-seo-10-steps-to-a-perfectly-
optimized-job-results-page-report/
Newman, E., Orler, E., Crispin, G, Jones, K., McMillan, M. (2012). The Talent Board. The Candidate
Experience 2011. Retrieved March 13, 2012, from http://www.thecandidateexperienceawards.org/report-
download/
Wikipedia. (2012, August). Meta element. Retrieved August 20, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_element
Wikipedia. (2012, July) Search Engine Optimization. Retrieved July 14, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
Editor's Notes
Will be talking about SEO – what is it, why is it important and what to look for in an SEO siteWill then share how this is working for us at Colorado Springs Utilities as well as some other tips/tricks to increase traffic and engage your target audience Introduction: Senior HR Specialist in Talent Acquisition, Planning & Rewards for Colorado Springs Utilities where I am largely responsible for all things Taleo and other technologies to support recruiting and hiring, advertising and marketing, vendor management, contingent labor, regulatory & compliance programs, and handle recruiting case load for hard-to-fill engineering and IT positions. Before get started, all I ask is you please participate and ask questionsWhile I might be the one up here presenting, there is a wealth of knowledge and talent within this room and I think we will all benefit if there is open dialogueIf you are like me, you’ve likely been tasked with learning a lot more about a subject or topic than you ever cared to know as part of your job. I first started hearing SEO tossed around in conversations over 5 years ago when I took over the Director of Staffing Services role for a large hospital system in Colorado Springs. Conceptually, when I first head the term, it seemed pretty straight forward what SEO was. But, what did it really mean and I could I tell if our site was “search engine optimized”. Let’s start by laying the foundation – What is SEO?
(Read definition)OK…so what does that mean exactly? We all know what search engines are – Yahoo, Bing, Google, etc.And, to optimize means “to take full advantage of”So…
In May 2012, Google recorded 433 million keyword searches related to ‘jobs’, ‘employment’ and ‘career’ information
In article by Jobvite, reports increasing time spent online every day…FB dominates
What’s really interesting is, with all the communication channels available, the #1 complaint from applicants is not hearing back from the employer regarding the status of their application.
Having your primary keyword or keyword phrase in the URL is very important, and you’ll want to separate individual words with a dash.Position of keywords. Ideally, the closer the keyword is to the root domain, the better.Title - A title tag is what shows up in the browser header and also in Google search results. Keywords in the title tag are important, just as they are in the URL. Begin with the most important words.H1. The h1 tag is the top headline when a user views the page. This tag is yet another indicator to search engines, so ensure your keywords are part of this. Can keep the h1 tag same as title tag, or make it more descriptive, as long as you still have your primary keywords in it.
This before SEO example is using the standard URL generated from Taleo when posting a positionYour website may be different depending on use of header/footers in CWS set upSEO best practices are for titles / H1 tags to be near top of pageWhat is meta data?
This page is an example of one of our recent job postings and the search results ranking on GoogleKeywords searched included “corrosion” “jobs” “Colorado”As well, each of the Indeed.com sites listed above also displayed this job in the search results
The problem with job descriptions I they are often written to keep the applicant pool a smaller, more manageable numberThis leads to a process often not about attracting the “right candidate” but rather about dissuading the “wrong candidate”And…even worse, they typicallydon’t tell you what you will be doing - typically describe what’s needed upon entry Job descriptions designed to serve an HR purpose – to classify the position for pay benchmarking and to define essential functions and duties of the job. All too often, this ends up in the job posting because recruiters are over-worked, handling too many requisitions and hiring managers / recruiters alike not able to take the time to craft an appealing advertisement of what the job opportunity representsThe connection to here to SEO is about driving traffic to your jobs by providing relevant and rich content to job seekers
Job seekers often look for year 1 and beyond in the posting – is this the next opportunity?
Job descriptions are often intentionally broad this laundry list doesn’t tell them what the job has to offer talented individuals want to know if what you have to offer represents a career opportunity what’s needed now to be consideredDepartment Description:What does your department do – what’s your scope of service? Please keep in mind, you want to sell your department in this section, so what appeals to your staff. How many employees are in your department? Are these all full time positions? What are the various positions within your department? Position Summary:What is the overall purpose of this specific position? What will the person hired be doing? Describe the typical hours worked / shift schedules, etc. What are the most important work behaviors or job requirements differentiating superior performers from adequate performers? To what level within the organization structure does this position report to? Are there any special working conditions for this position (e.g., confined spaces or other hazards, specific rotating schedules, on-call hours, etc.) Education Requirements:What level of education is needed – must have? Why? Are there specific courses you are really looking for within this level of education (a.k.a., a “body of knowledge”) instead? Are there preferred education levels you seek? Why? Probe for defensible reasons. For example, if someone completed and received straight “As” in all the accounting courses but not completed a philosophy course to graduate, would he/she be someone capable of doing the job? Experience Requirements:How many years of experience is typically required before someone can be considered competent or proficient doing this type of work? Why? What specific experiences would one expect to have exposure to during this time which results in competence or proficiency? What specific systems, tools, applications will be used in this position? Are these required to be considered eligible for the job or can they be learned on the job? Are there preferred experiences you seek? Why? Probe for defensible reasons - Experience (in years alone) is not a valid predictor of job success. Performance Objectives: (use S.M.A.R.T. model)What separates your top performers from your bottom performers? What must this person do during his/her first 6 months? What are the top 5-8 goals for the first 1-2 years on the job?Example: Within 18 months, the Senior Electrical Engineer will apply knowledge of dielectric materials and nano-filler materials to design transmission and distribution systems resulting in improved voltage endurance and breakdown strength. Job Rewards:Why would a prospective employee want to take this position in this department? What are the non-monetary rewards? What do people complain about the most on this unit? What are those things that can be frustrating or detractors from the job?
