What does Google for Jobs mean for recruiters?

By Steve Riley July 24, 2018

Google for Jobs launched in the UK in July 2018 and like most things Google do, it aims to change the digital landscape. This is the start of their play for the recruitment sector. So what does it mean in practice? Is it a technical problem or a content problem? Both. Read on…

Before we all jump on the latest bandwagon, it’s worth understanding what it all means and how it works. It’s not that complicated.

What does it mean in practice?

There is a particular way that jobs need to be coded up to be picked up by Google for Jobs. We’ve looked at that and built the schema into the latest releases of our software. So that’s one box ticked.

And more specifically?

Google is a great big machine, stuffed full of subtle, constantly-refined rules for answering the simple question: “What makes a web page interesting?” And in doing that it behaves surprisingly like a human. It’s not a question of tricking Google to list you, it’s more about making your jobs easy to find and giving the job information job hunters need. We handle the techie bit that exposes the data so it can easily be found, the rest is up to you. That part is the same answer it’s always been: write well for a human audience. Write good job ads that will capture the imagination of the job seeker and accurately describe the role being offered.

Downsides?

Google for Jobs has a long list of required fields and some of these you may not want to share, eg the schema asks for job street address and job postcodes. Most recruiters agencies will not want to share these details. It looks like these fields will throw up a warning when missing, rather than an error. It also looks like these fields are not validated, meaning the data can be fudged slightly, ie just show the town rather than anything more specific.

Check your site

There’s a useful data validation tool from Google here:
https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/

where you can add a job URL and see if it passes the test for useful data.

Bring your site up to date

All our most recent Version 5 and 6 sites have Google Structured Data to allow the jobs to be read by Google built in. After that it’s up to Google what it does with the jobs and whether it decides to feature them. All we can do is make the jobs available in the best shape we can – Google ‘decides’ whether to feature them.

Older sites may be updated at fairly nominal cost price – ask the Support Team about this.

Crystal ball time

This change helps level the playing field somewhat about ‘being found’ and ranking above or below competitors. If everyone uses the schema, jobs start from the same place and other factors inevitably come into play – the things you should be doing anyway. Looking further ahead, do Reed’s listings go above yours if they have the same content (because they’re more ‘important’ / have more jobs)?

And the big question – how long until Google start charging to promote jobs? In the same way that you currently have organic and paid listings for regular sites …and the difference isn’t always obvious.