Creating Noise or Disrupting an Industry: A Look at Google Jobs and the Potential Outcomes

Google has recently released the next big step in changing recruitment marketing with its Google for Jobs feature. Now, whenever a search is engaged that is identified as a job-related in nature, Google will automatically aggregate job listings from nearly all job boards, third party and company career pages alike. This comes as a major disruption to a marketplace that was otherwise cornered by giants like Indeed, Monster, and CareerBuilder.   

How it Works 

The idea here is to create a one-stop shop for job seekers. When a search is started by a key term such as “sales jobs near me,” Google will pull a list of all sales related roles near the designated location. Not only does it search the exact term sales, but rather Google uses the brilliance of it’s system to locate and group similar search terms to generate better results.  

Next Google allows the consumer to filter and refine the search by things like location, date of posting, job title etc.  Now, these are all features we’re familiar with from various platforms providing them for years. However, Google is taking all this a step further by automatically knowing the geographical search area to allow filters for commute time, providing automatic search alerts features with a single click, and linking Glassdoor review information to every posting.  

Ideally, this is a boon for job seekers as it will eliminate job posting confusion as Google prioritizes the listing with the most pertinent information, weeding out duplicates. This could have the added effect of job descriptions becoming more transparent as sites are now incentivized to provide more information up front.  

What it doesn’t do

Google insists that this new development is not to edge out the leaders in career sites such as Monster, LinkedIn, and ZipRecruiter, but to rather build partnerships, pushing traffic their way, while allowing the consumer to have ease of search.  Currently, there are no features that allow organizations to post directly to Google for Jobs, however, whether that may be on the horizon has yet to be seen.  

What this means for SEO  

Historically, a website’s ability to index its jobs postings to create organic SEO was the secret sauce to driving traffic. Indeed is the perfect example of a job board that built their empire on the ability to index better than the marketplace, to include beating out the originators of the job postings on search strength. They became so good at it that job seekers began to perceive them as the brand of choice to trust their job search with.  Indeed is currently the only company to not agreed to partner with Google for Jobs, believing that their standing relationship with the job seeker is not something to be bought or sold lightly as it’s massively lucrative.   

With Google for Jobs stepping into the space the old formula for SEO and indexing gets skewed. While Indexing will continue to matter, Google is now utilizing it’s own formula to sift through and index sites itself. A potentially big win for Indeed competitors such as Careerbuilder and Monster who will benefit from the additional traffic.  

Facebook Joining in the Game  

Google isn’t the only player to start shaking up the recruitment game. Facebook is now joining the fray adding a jobs section to their marketplace on both mobile and desktop sites. Their hope is to fill the gaps left by LinkedIn to serve lower-skilled and hourly workers. Facebook is taking this a step further by providing a platform for applicants to apply directly via Facebook without leaving the platform. While there is some concern amongst applicants about the idea of a social media background check of sorts, a large portion of the average job seeker is simply looking for a quick opportunity.  

The landscape of recruitment marketing is rapidly changing and will continue to develop in months to come as the marketplace becomes more familiar with these new tools and features. While these changes have unseen consequences for the major players currently existing in the space, the one group that is sure to win out in the end is the job seeker.