Google for Jobs structured data update:
What's the impact for job board technology?

 

On July 13 2021, Google announced several impactful updates to its Google for Jobs structured data specifications. While it may not sound Earth-shattering, these changes will significantly affect individual businesses and professional associations alike if they run job boards for their own companies, members, or industry.

Why?

To understand this, it's necessary to understand Google for Jobs, and how massive Google's market share actually is in the job search arena.

Currently, Google for Job postings are the first stop for more than 75% of jobseekers looking online for available work, and Google is the first source of search traffic for over 92% of worldwide searches, according to Statcounter.

Google has taken steps in recent years to position itself as a player in every level of professional recruitment. By building out tools for job search, job applications, job posting, and even connecting candidates with hiring companies, it's become much more than just a tool used by recruiters to access candidate information — it's now an integral part of any jobs board operation.

Below, we examine what Google for Jobs is, how the structured data update works, and what the implications for associations’ job board technology are.

Two people researching on a computer together

 

What is Google for Jobs?

Google for Jobs is a tool Google launched in 2017 in partnership with Madgex designed to make job search easier for jobseekers. It shows local job listings from company career pages as well as those from aggregators like Indeed and Simply Hired. The tool also lets you filter your results by position type, industry, title, and location.

Google began by integrating Google for Jobs data into their search results so jobseekers would be more likely to find appropriate listings. Now, Google has leveled this up again, using structured data to filter and eliminate duplicate listings across aggregators and to simplify the application process for jobseekers as much as possible. While this can be great for jobseekers, if you’re an association or professional society whose members are potential employers, it will almost definitely mean some changes for you.

How does Google for Jobs structured data work?

If you're not familiar with Google’s structured data and how it could impact your industry, here’s a quick breakdown.

A structured data format is a set of rules, or schema, that tell search engines what kind of information they should expect to find on a website. In Google’s case, they want listings for job postings so they can direct their traffic to those sites.

To make sure you are presenting relevant content in an easy-to-find format, you need to make sure your website is using Google's defined schema markup language. This includes listing company name, title, location/address info for each position, plus more granular details like work hours, hourly pay range, and perks offered by each post. Having these requirements will also help increase your chances of appearing in mobile searches where only snippets are displayed.

Is Google for Jobs important? Yes - very!

To have your job listings included in Google's search results, you need to adhere to Google for Jobs structured data guidelines as much as possible, or list your jobs through a third-party site that already integrates with Google for Jobs structured data.

There are some basic rules you need to know about structured data within Google for Jobs results pages, if you want to optimize your association’s job board technology so your site can appear in Google’s main jobs search results:

  • Integrating directly with Google for Jobs structured data is by far the best way to optimize your job board and have your Google for Jobs postings prioritized.
  • You'll want to be sure that every job posting has its own description page set up with the following minimum information:
    1. The name of the organization posting the job
    2. The specific title of the job or position
    3. A description of the job that includes its responsibilities, necessary skills, required experience or education, working hours, and other significant information. It should be formatted and consist of at least a full paragraph
    4. The job location, ideally including its complete address so Google can include dynamic commute times and location mapping
    5. When the job posting expires (this can be changed, of course, if the job is filled or the search is continued)
    6. Whether the employment is full time, part time, or a freelancer/contractor
  • You'll want to work with your web developer to make sure that each listing is open to Google for frequent indexing and follows good SEO practices.
  • Finally, you'll want to implement the DirectApply property for relevant listings to allow the jobseeker to simply apply on the job's description page, or to click a button to go to the application on your site.

As one of the updates announced in June 2021, Google is making the Jobseeker's experience a major priority in its drive into the recruitment process. By adding DirectApply to Google for Jobs structured data, Google is featuring ease of application in its results pages.

To take advantage of DirectApply and benefit from any prioritization Google implements, associations need to make sure that:

  • The application for the job is on the job description page, so that there is a button that goes directly to the application, still on your site.
  • You do not direct jobseekers to register or sign-in to access your application on your site.
  • You do not direct jobseekers to a third-party portal or platform to complete the application.
  • The application itself is a one-step process. If you need more complex or extended information, it should not be requested until after the initial form is completed, submitted, and confirmed.
A woman makes notes while looking at a computer at her desk

 

What impact does this have for associations’ job boards?

What does this all mean for associations and societies? Essentially, it has a key impact on your career center — so optimizing for this update is crucial.

Associations like yours should be taking steps to optimize your job board technology and to ensure your job board’s results show up in Google for Jobs postings.

Specifically, there are measures associations can take now to be ahead of the curve:

  • First, associations should optimize their job boards and career sites to support Google for Jobs structured data using the steps above.
  • It's important that an association not only look at its own career site, but also those of similar organizations so they understand how those sites rank in Google search results. Understanding how other organizations and associations leverage structured data will help determine if there are opportunities that your association could take advantage of as well as what enhancements could be made.
  • Some general enhancements that could positively impact how an association ranks in search engine results include adding responsive web design and additional information to your career section pages, such as location and current openings pages.
  • Integrating directly through Google for Jobs to put in place association-wide compliance to the structured data guidelines may also be an opportunity to share open jobs and refer potential candidates that enter your association's job board to employers who are looking for talent.
  • Successfully showing up within Google for Jobs postings can be parlayed into an advantage when seeking to attract the best talent to the industry as a whole, but can also become a strong marketing tool to help attract new members to the association itself. While talent acquisition can be time consuming and stressful, employers know that retaining talent is even more cost-effective than recruiting new talent.

Optimize your job board technology for Google for Jobs today

With over 92% of all online searches performed on Google, it’s no surprise that employers are looking to Google as their primary source for hiring new talent. Google for Jobs structural data and its updates can be a very big deal to individual users, but exponentially to associations and their members.

Today, 65% of Google users conduct job searches on desktop and laptop computers — which means job listings in SERPs play an even more important role than ever before. If you want your association’s jobs board to get noticed by Google when someone searches online for a job in your industry, you’ll need to ensure that it follows Google’s best practices for structured data so it will be recognized as genuine, pertinent, and timely.

Optimizing your current job board technology for this update can admittedly be a lot of work. Instead, get a market-leading career center for your association with all of these optimizations enabled from Madgex so you can boost revenue and unlock the value of your audience much more quickly. Get in touch with us today to learn more.