“HR should be every company’s ‘killer app.’ What could possibly be more important than who gets hired…” –Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE

Finding good candidates isn’t hard. Finding qualified applicants can be difficult. However, finding the best-fit talent, both in culture and in skill-set, can be excruciating. Your recruiters do all they can, but the candidates you want just don’t flood your company doors. So how do you make them come to you? Use these 6 tips to optimize your job posting and recruiting efforts.

1.    SEO

Candidates can’t find your job opening if you don’t use the right keywords to target them.  Research shows that 67% of candidates will use a search engine to browse for jobs. Without proper or effective SEO keywords, your chances of finding a qualified candidate pool are slim. Page titles, meta tags, and H1 tags can all be used to increase SEO efficiency.

• Page titles: you’ve got 70 characters at your disposal. While using words like “mentor” may sound better, “consultant” is a more effective term for SEO purposes. Try to place a keyword in the page title for optimal SEO performance. 
• Meta description: when you type a phrase into a search engine, you see the page title bolded in the results. Under the page title, where all the words are beneath is the meta description. These are 200 words of SEO-term-packed, attention-grabbing words.
• H1 tags: These tags make sure you’re using relevant keywords so people can actually find your post in search engines.

All of these combined with a regular content blog can increase site traffic up to 434%.

2.    Online Communities

This is a great avenue to pursue if you’re looking for specialized talent, in addition to the niche job boards. As a recruiter, you have to look and post in the right places. If a tech position is open, posting to a general community will get you a general set of skills. However, posting to a site like Reddit, Github, or Dribble who have over 103 million combined profiles will get the job opening viewed by tech talent who have the skills for the position. 

3.    Job Boards

Looking to staff a call center? Large-scale job boards will get you the candidates you need to operate the facility. However, if you are a small company looking to hire for specialized positions, a niche job board is a better option. It will provide a plethora of qualified candidates for you to make the most educated decision. In fact, 62% of job openings are posted to niche job boards.

4.    Find Recent Graduates

Partnering with universities and colleges gives your company a unique opportunity to tap talent before they even reach the professional workforce. Internships are popular gateways to the growing talent field; in fact, 97% of companies plan to offer valuable internship programs in the next year.

5.    Social Listings

Not all social media is social. Since companies have broken ground on social media platforms, professional development and connection sites have evolved. Sites like LinkedIn, AngelList, and Twylah are the more business casual of the job listings.

• LinkedIn: There are a total of 225 million LinkedIn users, both recruiters and jobseekers alike. Company LinkedIn accounts are just as important as candidate, so keep the company page updated with openings.
• AngelList: this company specializes in startups; so if you’re new to the entrepreneurial world, take a look.
• Twylah: For companies wanting to build a brand presence on social media, this is a good platform to use.  Companies like UPS have a job opening specific Twitter handle. Twylah even features page optimization to make sure your openings generate search engine traffic.

6.    Social Recruiting Tools

Don’t be fooled, social recruiting tools are different than social networking sites. These tools will crawl professional profiles to find relevant skills and contact information, so recruiters don’t have to waste their time doing so. 

SEO keyword optimization for the perfect job board, whether it is specialized or general, is a good place to start. Candidates can’t find the job postings if they can’t search for them. Pack those job openings with relevant SEO terms, and even place them in social listings and market them to fresh graduates. These are just a few tips to narrow your search and find your dream candidate. Finding the perfect match for the job openings in your company is like trying to find a soul mate for another person. It’s hard without a little help.

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Photo Credit: Robert Sheie via Compfight cc