Recruiting software by BlackDog - Recruiting web sites: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Most recruiting firms do not have a clue as to what to do with their web site. What I most often see is their extreme attention to its appearance. A professional look is the common theme. Yes, they are correct in that it does have to be professional; however, it also must provide value to the visitor. There has to be a reason the visitor is happy that they have landed there, because they have gained something. The visitor does not just want to see pages of how good you are. When candidates visit, they need to see something that will help them in their job search and when clients visit, they need to see something that will help them in their candidate search. A few recruitment firms do a decent job of offering available positions for the candidates to review. Almost none offer anything for the client in the way of available applicants. Very few offer any supporting tools or informative material to help find and hire quality candidates. To be honest with you, I think most recruiting firms think of their web sites as something closely related to the sign they put on the front door of their office.

Perhaps I am being a little too harsh but a lot of my companys time is spent connecting our recruiting software to a clients web site and I am often thinking that these customers just dont get it. I wrote an article a few months ago, Recruiting on the Internet and the Future of Recruiting Software . This article does point out what future recruiting web sites will be like just to be competitive.

These web sites of the future will not simply be job boards like Monster, Career Builder or Dice. These exchanges will be run and operated by people with the knowledge of very specialized skills. The biggest change I see coming however is the ability of recruiters to market and the means with which they market to their customers and candidates.

So, I finally get to my point. Recruiting firm web sites must be professional, The Good. Recruiting firm web sites must offer value to the visitor, right now mostly The Bad. Now on to The Ugly, recruiting firm web sites have to be found by the millions and soon to be billions of people using search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo to find stuff like applicants and new jobs. Recruiting firms do not have a clue as to how to get ranked on the first page of Google when an applicant is searching for a position in their profession. Lets face it, it doesnt matter how great your web site looks or how many cool things you offer the visitor if it cant be found. If the web site cannot be found, it is totally and utterly useless. Some recruiting firms still think they need to personally direct their clients and applicants to their web sites and then provide some functionality. Wrong and very wrong! If you have to direct applicants and clients to your web site like a guide leading a blind person then youre missing the point of having a web site. You need to be found by the people who are looking and who are unknown to you!

If you go to Google and search for recruiting software you will find that our company BlackDog Recruiting Software ranks in the top five on the first page under the natural search rankings. Dont confuse this with the paid for ads that appear on this page. People pay far more attention to the natural selections than the paid for ads. How did we get there and how do we stay there year after year? Here is a brief list of dos and donts for good search engine ranking on the words you choose as key words.