Google revamps Jobs search to streamline vacancy hunting
Google has announced a revamp of Google for Jobs to give recruiters more real estate in search listings to find candidates.
On Tuesday, the search engine giant said on the Webmaster Central blog that Google for Jobs, a search engine specifically designed for job hunters in the US, has been improved with new tools and features.
Now open for developers, site owners, and recruiters on mobile and desktop, Google for Jobs aims to make job hunting -- a difficult and stressful time for most -- easier for the unemployed or those looking for fresh opportunities.
When advertising jobs through the platform, queries with "clear intent" such as a head of catering in New York City or entry-level roles in DC will be displayed with a job listings preview, and each job can then be clicked to expand and show further details.
In addition, job seekers are able to filter by location and job title, among other criteria.
When job seeking there is often a sense of urgency attributed to weeding out the best and most suitable roles, and so keeping things clean and simple while allowing job seekers to rapidly scan aggregated listings is a way to warm up potential users to the new service.
When it comes to recruiters and developers, there are other features that Google has rolled out to push the platform forward. Users can opt for prominent places in search results which display logos, names, reviews, ratings, and job details.
"If you already publish your job openings on another site like LinkedIn, Monster, DirectEmployers, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, and Facebook, they are eligible to appear in the feature as well," Google says, which implies that while the company must work with current, popular aggregators, the firm may continue to expand upon Google for Jobs to one day make the suite the preferred method to advertise vacancies.
To add jobs listings to Google, jobs must be marked up with Job Posting structured data, and then a sitemap, RSS, or Atom feed has to be added with a < lastmod > date for each listing.
Recruiters and developers are also able to see how well their listings are performing. Listings can be previewed and analyzed with the Structured Data Testing Tool, sitemap status updates can be monitored in the Google Search console, and both performance statistics and markup error examples can be spotted and fixed in the aforementioned console.
In the coming weeks, Google plans to add new job listings filters in the Search Analytics report in Search Console, which will allow recruiters and vacancy website operators to track listing impressions and clicks.
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In related news, the European Commission has launched an antitrust investigation into Google practices related to the search market and whether the tech giant has abused its position by favoring the Google Shopping service in user queries and searches.