How Google Will Help Informed Candidates Find Jobs Faster

February 19, 2019

 

iCIMS Staff

3 min read

With the tightest labor market in decades, candidates are going out of their way to be better informed, and strategic in their approach, when exploring new job opportunities. According to a 2018 study done by Aptitude Research Partners, companies define informed candidates “as having the right information for an interview, the right skills for the job, and someone who has conducted his or her own research”.

The informed candidate is the ideal hire because they’re more likely to perform better since they’re already educated pre-onboarding. But what if employers are losing out on desirable talent because the search function on career sites are failing candidates?

Can candidates find your jobs quickly and easily?

Sought-after employers could have hundreds to thousands of job openings listed on their career site. If an informed candidate cannot quickly locate an appropriate job due to poor search functionality, it’s likely they’ll abandon their search and move on.

To paint a picture, imagine an experienced software engineer is searching on a career site of an organization known for embracing technology – the first search term they enter is SW Engineer. What would happen if the search reported “0 available positions” – would they give up or spend more time searching?

In reality, this employer has several job openings that this candidate would qualify for, but because the search didn’t pick up that the abbreviated, industry title matched similar positions (software architect and software developer), the employer is potentially missing out on a great candidate.

Make career site searching great again with Google

To address the frustration with career site inefficiencies that lead three out of five of job seekers to prematurely abandon their online job search, iCIMS is launching a new job discovery feature that uses a cloud-based machine learning system from Google. The enhanced set of search algorithms will improve the effectiveness of career site searches for both the candidate and the employer.

Employers who use the job discovery feature can provide candidates, such as the software engineer mentioned above, with more intuitive ways to explore career sites by making search field data, like interests, location, and experience level, more flexible so jobs are easier to find.

Here’s how it works:

Unlike strict search rules within career sites that only return “what you type is what you get” results, the job discovery feature algorithms address and correct the following:

• Spelling Forgiveness: Slippery fingers can lead to spelling errors, and job seekers shouldn’t be hit with a “no matches found” result. Spelling mistakes are eliminated when the job discovery feature makes automatic connections between what was typed and keywords that are included in job descriptions.
• Acronym Avoidance: Career site search filters often only return exact term matches, which limits what a candidate can find. For example, “CTO” can be associated with different types of roles like Chief Technology Officer, Controller or Comptroller. The job discovery feature will return a diverse set of job search results based on patterns recognized through machine learning.
• Intuitive Location Results: Career sites that only utilize a drop-down menu for specific location search can significantly deter candidates from applying. The job discovery feature allows candidates to apply for roles within a broader metropolitan area, found through more flexible search options like proximity and commute times.
• Contextual Connections: The job discovery feature uses keyword connections based on machine learning to expose relevant job postings to better interpret candidates’ interests and skills. For example, career sites can deliver better results that distinguish between job titles for restaurant server and server admin.

Informed candidates put in the work to know employers. Employers can do their part for candidates by making career site job discovery as simple as possible.

Click here to see new the new job discovery search enhancements if viewing on a desktop, or on an iPad.

Check back soon for more details on iCIMS job discovery feature, launching later this year.