How To Optimise Your Job Adverts For Google for Jobs

Your jobs need to be on Google for Jobs! It’s one of the biggest job boards in the world, it’s the first search result for every related search term and it’s completely free! 

If your jobs aren’t currently indexed on Google for Jobs then I assume

a) you think they’re on there but they’re not (true in a few cases) or

b) you’re not technically minded and you doubt your ability (the large majority) or

c) you underestimate its effectiveness (a weirdly large percentage) or

d) you’re just very lazy (I doubt this is true at all).  

Google for Jobs will send you relevant applications and also drive traffic straight to your website! This isn’t like TotalJobs, reed.co.uk or LinkedIn where the user stays on their platform. You’ll have candidates landing on your website from Google for Jobs, looking at all of your roles, reading your content and you’ll be able to capture their data. This is a dream come true. 

Every serious job user will look through Google for Jobs for relevant roles. Sure, they’ll use LinkedIn and one of the major generalist job boards, plus a couple of niche job boards confined to their sector but they will also use Google for Jobs, guaranteed! 

Also from what I’ve read and seen maybe only half of your competitors are using the correct structured data to ensure their vacancies are listed on Google for Jobs. This is a quick and easy way to beat over half of your competition. Even when recruitment agency sites add structured data to their websites so their roles should be compatible I still often see missing required fields and misconfigured schemas. 

Around 1.5% of Google’s traffic relates to job search terms (it’s not 30% as I often see bandied about) so this is a big market for them and will be an even bigger revenue generator for them over the years to come. I predict within 5 years that Indeed, LinkedIn and Google for Jobs will totally dominate the job board market with the generalist job boards being reduced to the fringes and the niche job boards still doing OK. I think niche boards will always have a place as people in those sectors know the boards and know most of the roles on them will be relevant to what they do. 

What is Google for Jobs?

Google for Jobs was launched in 2018 and acts as a jobs aggregator pulling in vacancies from recruitment agency websites, job boards and direct employer websites. It allows candidates to filter using their search tools, filtering on job title, location, date posted, job type, etc. 

Why is Google for Jobs relevant to my recruitment agency? 

I assume you advertise the large majority of roles that come into the business and the only reason you wouldn’t advertise a role is either because of budget constraints or because a particular role would end up having a huge volume of irrelevant applications and it’s a better use of time to conduct a targeted search over LinkedIn. 

Essentially you advertise your roles as you expect relevant applications and you may be able to fill the vacancy with one of those applicants. 

Just like the jobs page on your recruitment site, Google for Jobs is a free way to advertise your vacancies, however Google for Jobs has a much larger reach. 

Is Google for Jobs effective for my recruitment agency? 

If you don’t believe it’s an effective tool to showcase your roles free of charge and generate relevant applications then just type in a bunch of job search terms into Google and check out the first organic search result. I’m pretty sure it’s Google for Jobs every time. 

I’m too lazy to add my vacancies to Google for Jobs

I don’t believe this true at all as you wouldn’t be running a recruitment agency - one of the toughest and stressful gigs out there. To get to this level I assume you’re good at what you do and you enjoy working hard and seeing the results. 

Once your job page has the relevant structured data added to it (a one time process) then there's nothing you need to do. Google will scrape your job page and add automatically it to Google for Jobs.

How do I ensure my jobs page is compatible with Google for Jobs? 

In order for your roles to be listed on Google for Jobs , your jobs will need to include certain fields including, title, description, company name, date posted, contract type, company logo, location, salary, currency, plus several other fields. You should also ensure your jobs pages are part of your sitemap.xml and are indexable by Google. Each job should sit on its own job page and have its own unique URL. 

Also try to SEO optimise your job adverts by adding relevant keywords, without sacrificing readability. It’s not strictly necessary to ensure your vacancies are listed on Google for Jobs but it's well worth doing so they rank better. 

Once again not strictly necessary but it helps a little - mobile responsive sites and pages. Your job pages should be mobile friendly as Google tends to prioritise mobile friendly websites over those that just look reasonable on desktop devices.  

Once again not an essential item but make sure all job ads are spelling mistake free and contain no grammatical errors. 

General business advice & Google for Jobs advice but as soon as new roles come in, make sure they go up on your jobs page. Google likes websites that are regularly updated and will it prioritise those sites over recruitment websites that get updated less frequently.   

How to test that my jobs are on Google for Jobs? 

There’s three main ways really. 

Firstly pick a job from your website, a rather niche one, for example a “Financial Controller” based in “Norfolk”. Ensure the job has been live for a week or two so Google has had time to crawl your website and pick it up. Now go to Google for Jobs and search for “Financial Controller” jobs in “Norfolk” and hopefully your vacancy should be listed. 

Secondly you can test to see if your job page is compatible with Google for Jobs and in that case they should be listed on there. Simply post your job URL into the Google Rich Results Test. If your job page structured data meets its standards then it will be listed there. 

Thirdly, you can use Google Search Console. Copy and paste your job URL into the "inspect URL" search bar at the top of the page and click “Test live URL”. Google Search Console can then tell you if it’s compatible with Google for Jobs. 

How should the job code look? 

Your jobs should use JSON-LD for the structured data and your template code should look something or basically pretty much exactly like this...

<html>

  <head>

    <title>Software Engineer</title>

    <script type="application/ld+json">

    {

      "@context" : "https://schema.org/",

      "@type" : "JobPosting",

      "title" : "Software Engineer",

      "description" : "<p>Google aspires to be an organization that reflects the globally diverse audience that our products and technology serve. We believe that in addition to hiring the best talent, a diversity of perspectives, ideas and cultures leads to the creation of better products and services.</p>",

      "identifier": {

        "@type": "PropertyValue",

        "name": "Google",

        "value": "1234567"

      },

      "datePosted" : "2017-01-18",

      "validThrough" : "2017-03-18T00:00",

      "employmentType" : "CONTRACTOR",

      "hiringOrganization" : {

        "@type" : "Organization",

        "name" : "Google",

        "sameAs" : "https://www.google.com",

        "logo" : "https://www.example.com/images/logo.png"

      },

      "jobLocation": {

      "@type": "Place",

        "address": {

        "@type": "PostalAddress",

        "streetAddress": "1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy",

        "addressLocality": "Mountain View",

        "addressRegion": "CA",

        "postalCode": "94043",

        "addressCountry": "US"

        }

      },

      "baseSalary": {

        "@type": "MonetaryAmount",

        "currency": "USD",

        "value": {

          "@type": "QuantitativeValue",

          "value": 40.00,

          "unitText": "HOUR"

        }

      }

    }

    </script>

  </head>

  <body>

  </body>

</html>

What happens if my job is on several different websites?

Google for Jobs will merge all of those job postings into one and list that but Google will include several different ways for the candidate to apply. For example if you’ve listed an “Executive Assistant” vacancy on your website, LinkedIn and SECSInTheCity then it will merge all three job ads into one and list all three application buttons on the one job advert.

If it’s possible, try to add your job to your recruitment website first then add the roles to the other paid sites a day later. This isn't always possible and may be more of a hassle than it's worth, especially if you’re using a multi-poster like Broadbean or LogicMelon.  

Google updates

Google often rolls out updates for its algorithm for ranking websites and will also occasionally roll out new updates for Google for Jobs so keep an eye out for these and check every 6 months or so to make sure your jobs pages are still compatible with Google for Jobs. 

Are Abstraction Labs’ recruitment websites compatible with Google for Jobs?

Yes! All of our recruitment agency websites use JSON-LD on each individual job page, combined with dynamic meta and Open Graph tags, dynamic sitemaps and server side rendering to ensure all of your jobs are listed on Google for Jobs, within days of posting them. 

If you have any other questions about Google for Jobs or about our recruitment sites then just get in touch.