Keywords are a central feature of our business day. We use them to search our resume databases and to parse through the profiles and resumes posted on job boards and social networking sites. The problem, of course, is that we pesky humans have a bad habit of using different words to express the same idea. That variability in human expression makes it difficult to know which keywords will actually identify the best candidates for each of your openings.
So, what should you do? How can you select the right keywords when there are so many competing alternatives? The answer, I think, is to create a keyword taxonomy-an annotated list of search terms-that is rich in the language of the top talent in the specific career fields for which you are recruiting. Think of it as a “set of master keys in words” that can unlock the candidate databases you are probing.
Creating such a tool is not particularly difficult. Doing so, however, is a departure from the current practice in many organizations. It involves temporarily stepping outside the press of individual, day-to-day assignments and taking a longer term view of how keywords can best serve your recruiting strategy. Here’s what I mean.
The rule of thumb in developing a list of keywords has usually been to rely on the information provided to us in a job description or requisition. The problem with this approach, of course, is that those documents are typically formulated by hiring managers-one of the least articulate populations on the planet. The terminology they provide, therefore, is necessary but insufficient to unlock the best talent in an ATS or job board database. It is a part of the master keyword set, but not all of it.
How can you fill in the gaps?
I suggest you borrow a page from your colleagues in sales and marketing and form a focus group. Such a group is only useful, however, if it is composed of the right participants. You’re trying to uncover the language used by the best talent for your openings, so your focus group should be populated with the same kind of people. And, you have a ready source of such individuals among your organization’s “A” level performers in the career fields for which you’re recruiting. They, better than anyone else, know exactly which terms their peers will use to describe their qualifications.
Top performers are usually very busy, however, so you may have a hard time breaking them free for such an exercise. If that’s the case in your organization, you can also build your set of master keywords by conducting a similar survey with your new hires during their orientation. This approach is clearly more challenging to implement, however, because you will have to base your selection of the group’s participants not on their demonstrated excellence at work, but on your judgment of how they are likely to perform once they are on-the-job.
In either case, your focus group will yield the best results if its work is conducted in three steps.
Those four baskets of search terms should then be added to the terms you derived from the hiring manager’s job description or requisition. If those documents enable you to do so, assign each of those terms to one of the categories used in Step 3 above. If not, the most politic course to assign them to the absolutely critical category. The resulting integrated list of search terms is your set of master keywords.
The above process is clearly labor and time intensive so think of it as an investment to develop an asset. The product you create-your keyword taxonomy-is just such a resource. It is a state-of-the-art search tool that can be used over and over again by the entire recruiting team. No less important, that tool gives them a genuine competitive advantage because it will increase both their efficiency and their performance. It should, therefore, be password protected and carefully monitored. As with all assets, it will require updating from time-to-time, but the effort involved will be substantially less than of the original development.
Keywords are typically viewed as one of the basic tools in our profession. For better or worse, everybody uses them so it’s easy to assume they have little or no differentiating value. When forged into a powerful asset, however, keywords can help an organization unlock talent other employers can’t reach. That’s why no recruiting team should be without “a set of master keys in words.”
Thanks for reading,
Peter
P.S. Please tell your friends and colleagues about WEDDLE’s Newsletter. They’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness, and so will we.
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This edition of the Guide, our 9th, introduces an entirely new format: The Top 100, our pick of the most effective job boards and career portals on the Web, and the Best & the Rest, a directory of over 10,000 sites organized by career field, industry and geographic focus. And at just $39.95, it’s a true recession buster, as well!
The Association Guide lists over 3,000 associations by the career field, industry or location in which they specialize and indicates whether they have a job database, a resume database and/or a discussion area for professional networking. It is the only book of its kind in print and at just $49.95, it’s practically a steal.
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And don’t wait. Even if you’re not hiring at the moment, these books can be helpful to you. Their site profiles will enable you to pinpoint the best places online for recruiting, once the economy starts growing again. And if that takes longer to happen than you would like, these books also include useful information for a job search. So, don’t delay; get your WEDDLE’s Guides today!
Our Featured Books
The Da Vinci Code of Careers
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Even Super Search Strings Won’t Work With the Wrong Keywords
How can you tell search engines and computers what kind of candidate you’re looking for? Use Finding Needles in a Haystack. Just released by WEDDLE’s, this 3-volume set is the first comprehensive listing of keywords for successfully searching resume databases online and off. You can select individual volumes or get the entire set.
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Engineering
Executive & Management
Finance & Economics
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Human Resources
Sales & Marketing
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Banking
Broadcasting & Media
Construction
Dentistry
Food & Beverage
Hospitality
Insurance
Investment Finance
Law
Pharmacy
Psychology & Counseling
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Science
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Accounting & Bookkeeping
Administration
Advertising & Communications
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Our Featured Job Board
Site Spotlite … from the pages of WEDDLE’s 2009/10 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet.
There are 50,000 job boards now in operation in North America and an equal number operating elsewhere around the world. The key to recruiting top talent online, therefore, is knowing where to find and how to select the best sites for each of your requirements. WEDDLE’s 2009/10 Guide profiles The Top 100 employment sites on the Web today and provides The Best & the Rest, a listing of over 10,000 such sites worldwide. It’s all of the information you need to determine which job boards will deliver the optimum yield for you. For example:
CareerBuilder.com
Post full time jobs: Yes
Post part time, contract or consulting jobs: Yes-All
Distribution of jobs: International
Fee to post a job: $400+/posting
Posting period: 30 days
Can posting be linked to your site: Yes
Resume database: Yes
Number of resumes: 28,000,000+
Source of resumes: Direct from individuals
Top occupations among visitors: Wide variety
Other services for employers: Discussion forum, Assessment instruments, Banner advertising, Status Reports: postings & banners
Member, International Association of Employment Web Sites: Yes
New Certification for HR Professionals
One of the key roles HR professionals play in any organization is staff development. To execute that responsibility effectively, they must know how best to counsel employees on career issues and concerns.
How do you acquire the expertise to do so? WEDDLE’s is proud to introduce the first-ever certification program in Career Fitness. Based on Peter Weddle’s new book, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System, this program provides all of the training and follow-up support you need to become a Career Fitness Pro (CFP) and counsel employees on both the key principles of career success in the 21st Century and the practical steps that will put those principles to work for them on-the-job.
The Career Fitness Pro certification also offers two other very important benefits for you:
and
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To learn more, email Peter Weddle at [email protected] or call at 203.964.1888.