Job boards are a valuable tool that can connect you with the most appropriate candidates, fast. When using these sites, it’s important to be aware of the tricks and techniques that can help your consultants to make the most out of them. Job boards are a valuable tool that can connect you with the most appropriate candidates, fast. When using these sites, it’s important to be aware of the tricks and techniques that can help your consultants to make the most out of them.
After all, candidates aren’t always predictable in their job search and with the added pressure of finding the right candidates for your clients, fast, you need to ensure you’re doing all you can to get it right.
Below, we outline the top three ways that you can gain maximum value from job boards.
Perfect the job advert
A well-structured job advert is essential to attract the right candidates – so it’s important that your consultant writes a brilliant one. A poorly thought-out advert can deter candidates from applying, impacting the amount of engagement that you receive for the role.
The advert should contain enough detail to sell the position, because anything too vague could have them quickly moving on. However, there shouldn’t be paragraphs and paragraphs of overwhelming or boring information. Therefore, striking the right balance is essential!
A tip is to use bullet points to break up paragraphs so that the writing isn’t too overwhelming. This will also help your consultant to establish the key points they want to cover. For example, this might be that the person needs a years’ experience in the industry, or a degree in a certain subject.
What’s more, the description should have a welcoming rather than demanding tone. So make sure you introduce the role with some background and provide information about the type of company the role is for. All this can help a candidate visualise themselves working in the role and ultimately making them more likely to click the apply button.
Use keywords
Keywords are the phrases and terms that candidates are using when searching for vacancies on job boards. If you use the wrong phrase, it’s likely that your job advert won’t get picked on a job seeker’s search.
Therefore, you need to think ahead about the types of search terms that candidates will be using. The most important part of choosing keywords is the job title.
While a ‘Standout Sales Executive’ might sound exciting to you, it won’t perform well on a job board. After all, this isn’t the type of phrase that most candidates will type into their search bar. Instead, ‘Sales Executive’ would do the trick because it’s simple and relevant for the job posting.
After you’ve decided on the title, you need to think about how you’ll use keywords in the main job description. Select between three and five phrases that relate to the industry or role. You should pepper these throughout the description so it flows well – without sounding forced.
Make use of Boolean search
This searching technique will help you to find and target more candidates and is useful when searching a CV database. You can do this by using terms such as AND, OR and NOT, to specify which words you want included in your search string. This helps you to find more precise results and specific matches.
Using ‘AND’ means that both terms you use must appear in the search, for example, marketing AND sales will make sure that you get results for both these areas.
Using OR will bring up results that have either of these keywords, such as, marketing OR PR OR public relations.
If you don’t want a certain term to appear you can use NOT. For instance, marketing NOT PR, will help you find CVs that contain the word marketing, but not PR.
For a more technical search, you can make use of brackets. Think of them as a way of using ‘or’. So, if you wanted a senior marketing manager, you could search: (manager OR senior) AND (marketing or PR). This would allow you to pick up all CVs that had senior management experience in marketing or PR and means that your search isn’t restricted.
In summary
Job boards are a great tool to use to find the most talented and appropriate candidates. However, to get the most out of them it’s important to use the right techniques.
Make sure your consultants become familiar with these methods and provide further training for them to perfect these if necessary.
CV-Library is the UK’s leading independent job board, boasting a range of vacancies across the country: from Edinburgh to Cardiff. It also owns a number of sector specific sites, including JobsRetail.
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