Drawing on 20 years of data on candidate behaviour, Annabelle Sidonie, a SEEK Customer Success Manager, is sure of one thing: “Candidates want to be presented with the most relevant job ads straight away.”
This is the simple reason you won’t (and don’t actually want to) see your own job ads in search results.
Hirers are not the candidates they hope to hire
The reality is that candidates don’t search for ads like hiring managers or recruiters do. In fact, the number of searches that include a company name in the keyword search is minimal (around 3%), which is how many hirers typically search. Sidonie also says that many hirers use the classification field to find their ads whereas candidates don’t do this as much anymore.
Put simply, it wouldn’t make sense for hirers to be surfacing in their own ads because they aren’t searching the way their ideal candidate is (unless of course they are applying for the same role they were hiring for).
Changing behaviours
In the past, candidates relied heavily on the classification filter to surface relevant results – which could lead to varied outcomes, particularly if keywords were misleading or generic terms were included. It meant talent could potentially miss out on relevant jobs in other classifications.
Sidonie says these days, candidates type in a keyword in most searches, which is usually a role title.
“This could be due to the increase in mobile usage, emergence of recommendations within other tech products or services and the evolution of roles titles and hybrid roles,” she says.
Take the infographic below as an example. It shows that very few candidates searched by brand name, and a third of the searches included keywords. Interestingly, another third of searches included unexpected words, which SEEK’s search technology was able to synthesise in order to deliver the relevant results.
More sophisticated search
This increasingly sophisticated customer behaviour and the introduction of AI-powered technology mean the location the candidate is searching for and the ad’s freshness and relevance are now all considered when matching candidates to jobs. “From this information, we’re able to predict the candidate’s search intention,” Sidonie says.
AI-based job search understands the user’s intent by going beyond the keyword term and understanding personal preferences, plus the detailed requirements of the job, and relationships between roles to ensure they don’t miss out on relevant opportunities that are called different things.
The change in our search capabilities is designed to get you more relevant quality candidates rather than quantity. It's also designed to make it easier for your ads to really shine if it's highly relevant to a candidate regardless of when the job ad was posted.
“Ads are also proactively surfaced and remarketed to relevant candidates through alerts and weekly roundups,” she says.
Getting personal
Sidonie explains that the use of Jobmail alerts, weekly roundup emails and daily recommendations in the SEEK app also shows that candidates don’t want to do the “heavy lifting” and just want to be presented with relevant ads quickly.
Candidates now expect more personalised online experiences and job searching is no different. Sidonie believes the emergence of predictions based on behaviour and profiling in technology – for example recommendations with Netflix, Spotify and fashion brands – mean that we now know that candidates expect to be shown relevant ads.
Put yourselves in their shoes
In her experience, Sidonie says hirers sometimes have a “tricky time” putting themselves in the candidates’ shoes when it comes to job searching. Her advice is to implement actionable ways to see things from their perspective. This includes:
- Think mobile first: “A simple way is to look at job ads on a mobile given this drives 71% of SEEKs traffic.
- Be clear: “Make sure your content is concise and engaging, as this well help your ad stand out from the pack.”
