Hiring can be a daunting task, so it’s important to make it easier on yourself where you can. Optimizing your job postings is one way to stay ahead. As recruiters, hiring managers, or HR personnel, you need to put your best foot forward, especially with job postings -- that’s how most candidates will be introduced to the job and the company. But you aren’t just writing your postings for the candidates; you’re also targeting the search engines used to find them. Both of these audiences should be at the front of your mind when creating job postings, or improving on older ones.

A lot of people simply type in the job they’re looking for into a search engine (Google, Yahoo!, etc.) and wait for it to come back with the relevant results, either from individual websites or from a job board like Indeed or Monster. This means you need to make your postings easy to read and engaging for both the person and the program.

Best Practices for Your New Job Posting

Job Titles

Be as clear and concise as possible with the job title. Get specific -- don’t add needless descriptors -- but do try to use the usual terms of your industry. This also means that you shouldn't try for cutesy or edgy titles that no one would know; doing so risks presenting a job title that might seem utterly unrelated to the job you’re trying to fill. Stick to tried and true titles. All of this makes it easier on the candidates and the search engines.

Publish Your Postings

Post on your own website first, if possible, to have a good link back to hiring organization. This means you can keep the evergreen postings live longer since job boards usually have a time limit to them. You can even decide to create separate landing pages for frequent or recurring roles (like junior programmers, etc.). These pages are more elaborate and contain different information than a usual posting, such as testimonials, videos, team photos, etc. This will keep the page fresh with new updates and be engaging to the reader.

Sharing the Job Postings

Don’t forget to share your posts since you put all this work into them. You want them seen by the biggest number of people, and not everyone will search on the same site. Pick sites that complement the job. So for design or art related roles, try posting to Pinterest. Hip Millennials like to congregate on Instagram, so postings aimed at them should, too. This approach also helps you rank better for SEO because you’re creating more internal links.

Job Descriptions

Keep your descriptions short and sweet. No one will read anything too long, hence the TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) tag on a lot of posts. If there are too many details, the reader and the search engine get bogged down. You keep candidates engaged when the post is shorter than 600 words. Also, try using bullet points to keep things concise and make your point clear. Include keywords. Search engines will highlight them, which helps candidates find the jobs they want. But only use relevant phrases (more specific phrases will narrow down the competition). Think about how job seekers will word their searches so you can directly address them. Avoid overusing of keywords to try to catch as many readers as possible; search engines will penalize postings with too many keywords. You need to find the balance between the needed descriptors and what would be considered “fluff.”

Never forget that you’re writing these postings for people. Don’t get bogged down in appeasing search engines and SEO. Like any marketing strategy, great copy will stand out over mechanics to attract your desired audience.