You’re a recruiter and an expert at creating and posting job descriptions. So why should you listen to me – a marketer? For starters, the recruitment and HR industry bears a striking resemblance to customer acquisition. The only difference being recruiting candidates vs recruiting customers.
So why Indeed? There are hundreds of great examples of businesses creating high performing job descriptions. I’ve had the pleasure of communicating with members of Monster, Indeed, Jobs2Careers, SimplyHired, Glassdoor, CareerBuilder, and pretty much every other job board. The ones that I thought had the best methodology for marketing and testing were: Indeed, Glassdoor and Monster.
Those three businesses have some of the best in-house marketing teams I’ve spoken too, and when it comes to job posts they have ridiculous methodology for A|B testing and SEO.
What You Can Learn About job Posting From Indeed.
SEO Job Title
Keep it simple. Oftentimes businesses get caught up trying to create unique titles like “Marketing Ninja Magician Leader”. You’ll notice Indeed simply titled their job “Director, Search Engine Optimization (SEO).” I don’t have their research on me, but if you consider the variations and impact of SEO, then this title will be optimal for the specific role of “SEO Directors.”
Keyword Variations
In the copy you’ll notice some other interesting things. The use of different variations of the title to ensure that they turn up in search. The following variations are all used:
- Director, SEO
- Online Marketing Director
- SEO Director
Similar Job Titles for SEO
Now, I saw this one earlier, but it looks like they removed it. Maybe through an A|B test?
I thought it was a clever idea of adding more keyword variations. What Indeed did was add a section called, “Other Titles You May Know This Role As” (or something like that I don’t remember the exact name).
Under it they listed about 6 different job titles relating to expert SEO positions. Now I can’t shed any light as to why they removed it, maybe they found that the added candidates were lower quality or they were generating too high a volume, but I thought it was a nifty SEO trick to use for a job description.
Role Description
Short and concise. Indeed focuses on delivering a clear message of the role and how it impacts the company. They mention the excitement of over 180 million active job seekers, high visibility and leadership. You know reading this Director of SEO role that Indeed values this position, and they will be a key cog for success.
Job Responsibilities
Again, Indeed keeps their job description concise. They understand that job seekers want to understand the role and responsibilities as quickly as possible. I always recommend keeping responsibilities to under 10 bullet points that quickly define what candidates can expect from the role.
Job Description Requirements
The requirements section isn’t meant for you to list every single thing you want from a candidate — just what’s most important. I always recommend using this section as a filter to remove anyone that is unqualified. To do this, focus on what will thin the candidate herd.
Indeed uses experience in SEO with more than 10MM users/month, experience with Pig/Hadoop, and the ability to quantify and present SEO improvements.
The Perks
In the requirements sections, Indeed mentioned “ambidextrous ping pong skills” as a way to show company culture, but the perks help to further show what kind of environment you foster. Catered meals, endless snacks, casual dress codes, flexible work, and happy hours. This screams an environment that places work/life balance at the forefront, and values employees time outside the office.
How Can Indeed Improve Their Job Description Posting?
Without knowing too much about their A|B tests or candidate flow, I’d make the following recommendations.
Their opening paragraph is weak to me. I think that they’re very well known and will attract top talent regardless, but to me they can show off more of their personality here.
“Indeed works when talented, passionate people come together to get a job done.”
I can replace Indeed with any company name and this opening section will still work. The key to me is to show off what makes your brand unique and drive that message hard in the beginning.
Under the requirements, I think there’s some unnecessary items here that can help make it more concise.
“2 Years Experience Managing a Team.” This can be removed as it’s a no-brainer for the position. If you’re hiring for a Director level position, and are looking at people with 5-7 years experience, you’re going to get candidates with management experience.
I would look to add more granular requirements if the goal is to filter experts in SEO. Something like “Ability to derive estimated revenue from traffic volumes and drive conversion based SEO strategies.” I think they do a good job describing the needs from a traffic generation position, but the role will be focused on driving company revenue from organic traffic as well, and that should be emphasized.
Under the Perks I think there’s a wasted opportunity here for personality as well.
Something can be added here that’s relevant to the SEO team such as: Do you like tacos? Our SEO team does weekly Taco Tuesdays at Torchy’s.
Indeed has built their entire business on SEO, so it’d be crazy not to use their job descriptions as an example of what you should do. By taking some lessons from what they’re doing, you’ll be generating more high quality candidates than ever before.