Keywords Are Killing Us – Your Searching Strategy is Missing Top Talent

Searching the sea of candidates to find the best fit is not easy. Many recruiting tools give recruiters options to look up keywords across candidate applications and resumes to narrow the field of possible candidates. However, these keywords may be making matters worse instead of better. The main goal of keywords are to group the candidates that your recruiter wants, more people interested than can fill, puts best candidates first to make it easier for recruiters to find the candidates. Find out why and what you can do to find the best candidates.

In this recorded webinar, Andrea McEwen-Henderson, National Account Manager from College Recruiter and David Sarnowski, Customer Experience Manager from HarQen discusses why keyword searches are problematic, as well as giving options to help you find the best candidates quicker.

Key Takeaways:

1. Understand the two traps of keywords.

• Candidates know recruiters use keywords to find people. There are millions of resources easily available to teach candidates how to fill a resume and cover letter with just what they need to be seen first by recruiters. Because of this however, they skew the results by capturing unqualified candidates, slowing down your screening process.
• Some candidates that are exceptionally skilled but don’t use the keywords that the recruiters are going to reference, missing the job opportunity. While at the same time some recruiters might not know the correct keywords to find the candidates, they can miss many good candidates, just because of semantics.

2. Learn alternative approaches to enhance your search results.

3. See better ways to approach and use keywords.

David has 18 years of experience across education, coaching, and marketing. He uses his skills, alongside the rest of the HarQen team, to help Fortune 100 and mid-market clients align and accelerate their recruitment processes to deliver the business outcomes that matter to them and you. Since 2007, HarQen, has been helping clients align and accelerate their recruitment processes to deliver the business outcomes that matter to them. In addition, they’ve had a lot of fun doing it.

HarQen has engaged over 1,000,000,000 candidates and counting. Its Recruitment Acceleration Management Process (RAMP) reveals how its award-winning tools can help you and uncovers the most effective way for you and HarQen to work together.

Topics Discussed:

1. If we are not to rely on keywords, what do we rely on?

• Follow the Google and focus on content rather than keywords to see if it matches the questions people are asking. In addition, conversational searches will deliver search results that are more on point with what users are looking for. You need to give your candidates an opportunity to talk about their experience. Some ways of accomplishing this is through a digital interview, written questions, or assessments. More work on the front end, but when only the qualified ones are left, it’s much easier and saves a lot of time in the hiring process.

2. You mentioned reliance on any one thing is a mistake and that we should use a myriad of tools, can you please tell us what tools you are talking about?

• Don’t tell the candidates everything, let them talk. Write your job ads in a conversational tone forcing the candidates to supply their experiences on their own. This will show their knowledge, or lack thereof.

3. Do you have an example or some tips on writing a job description in a more conversational tone?

• Use broader terminology to open up your application to more candidates.
• Writing job ads in a way to talk about what is unique and great about them.
• Don’t just say what you’re exactly looking for, let the candidates talk more than you.