Following on from my blog earlier this month on improving talent attraction, I thought I’d expand on one area on which there is very little information. The integration of an ATS system with a career website.
If your company uses one of the well known Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), your vacancies could be hidden from candidates. The standard website integration used by these companies, can hide vacancies from search engines, such as Google and is one of the main reasons career websites are not attracting the most talented candidates.
Download the full report in PDF format from the 4MAT website or read a summary below:
Why is important to appear in Google?
Over 15 million job related searches are carried out on Google each month in the UK; with over 65% of these containing job title or type, and location. Websites which include this key information, not only in the content but in the url, are more likely to be displayed on the first pages of Google.
How to check if this a problem with your website?
Carry out this simple test
If the url is in the format
www.MyATSprovider.com/mycompanyname/jobsearch…. (NB This is not a live link)
All of your vacancies are on your ATS provider’s domain and search engines will not index the vacancies against your company.
To make matters worse one well known global ATS supplier uses the following code on vacancies.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
This code is used to stop search engines indexing the page!
The other widely used method of integration is to provide vacancy search and application through an i-Frame.
If the web address (url) of the page does not change whilst a jobs search is carried out, an i-Frame has been used, with the contents of the frames held on the ATS provider’s servers. Search engines are effectively blocked from accessing this content.
Two examples have been provided at the top of this page; the first is an example of an integration where the vacancy is displayed through an i-Frame or simply on the ATS supplier’s servers. The second is an example of a vacancy in a modern integration. The areas used by search engines are outline in yellow.
Social Networking and Bookmarking
An ATS system using an i-Frame integration, as described above, either cannot offer social networking integration, or if it does will return the visitor to a page without any navigation back to the main website, as shown above.
This is also the case with the current ‘Email a Friend’ functionality offered by most ATS suppliers.
The Solution and Results
Using the latest integration methods all the vacancies are transferred to and displayed directly on the career website with all the latest search engine optimisation and social networking integration offered. This approach has been used successfully for many years within the recruitment sector, by agencies and Job Boards.
An example of a vacancy optimised for search engines is shown at the top of the page, with key information high lighted in yellow.
Employers using the latest integration techniques will immediately see the benefits. By using an integration method which employs the latest SEO technology, search engines will be able to index vacancies using key information, such as job title, role and location.
This means that vacancies will have the potential to appear on the first page of Google, often in a top 3 ranking position. This increases not only the number of direct applications, but more importantly the quality and relevance, improving both hiring rates and candidate quality.
If you would like to find out more about this and the options available please feel free to contact me.
David Johnston
020 7247 9494
[email protected]
