With such a troubled economy, it's no surprise that the job market is flooded with tons of candidates for almost every position; it's become trickier than ever to find the most qualified applicant for the job. As many companies and job seekers turn to the big (monster-like) online job boards for assistance, it's easy to see how the best applicants may sometimes get lost in the shuffle.

According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly 23 million unique visitors searched for work on job boards in the month of May. That's an increase of 37% from the year before. However, these applicants only see an average response rate between 1-4%, suggesting that companies are not finding the type of candidate they're looking for from online job boards.

In a time when companies are being overwhelmed with talent, what can be done to attract the right talent?

Using your own Job Board

By posting employment opportunities on your own job board, you can save money while helping to eliminate the endless stream of generic resumes and focus on the candidates who really want to work for YOU. It is generally proven that candidates who apply directly on your website are more likely to have researched your company (because they're already on your site) and are often more qualified than those who submit their resume from a general career site.

That stated, you still need to encourage the right candidates to apply. According to the social recruiting service, Jobvite, employee referrals and social networking have become the preferred method of sourcing new job applicants for many companies. With a placement rate of 1 out of every 10 applicants (as opposed to 1 out of 100 for an application received out of the blue), it's not hard to see why. While Jobvite's services don't come cheap, you can capitalize on this trend without spending a dime by posting links to your employment opportunities on your company's social media accounts and encouraging your employees to do the same.

Other key benefits of having your own job board integrated into your website may include the ability to:

• Consolidate resumes from alternative sources into one database
• Efficiently manage your job postings for multiple locations, facilities, or regions, from a single operational point.
• Create a pool of candidates for future employment opportunities
• Keep a digital record of resumes, conversations, notes, and candidate details for future reference and review
• Search your library of resumes for using specific filters

Optimizing your Job Board

Once you've integrated a job board into your online presence, you should take the necessary steps to ensure that search engines are able to find your postings as easily as possible. As with the rest of your website, optimizing your job board is a two-fold process, involving both on and off-site techniques.

Small things like creating keyword rich page titles and indexing your site with search engines will go a long way in helping your job listings to get found. However, for maximum results, it's essential that you craft your messages with SEO in mind. Just like you would create content for the rest of your site, should publish job listings on unique pages, using keyword rich headlines and content that focus on terms that prospective hires actually search for. To help you get started, here's a list of job posting tips that have been compiled by recruitment-seo.com:

1. Make the job title a term people would search for in Google, Yahoo, etc.
2. Avoid 'non-search' terminology like "Opportunity," "Seeking a...," "My Client is...," etc.  You can use these terms, but they're wasting valuable space up in the Title and the early part of a job description.
3. Familiarize yourself with the different levels of headings (also known as <h> tags).  Headings and sub-headings on a page should flow properly, so if you want to break your job description down, don't use bold h1 headings, use h3 or h4 (Heading 3 or Heading 4) tags.
4. Repeat your search keywords wherever possible and relevant (think of candidates searching and what they might type into Google - then keep thinking about it - what candidates call their job may differ to what recruiters call it).
5. Use lists if need be, to increase keyword density.
6. Think about including synonyms in your description - e.g. using "team leader" as well as "project manager" or "sales manager" as well as "business development manager" increases your chances of showing up in a search.

Interested in adding a job board to your website, but not sure where to start? The Fission Job Board component lets you take control of your job openings and collect every resume candidate in one archived and search-ready place. Simply direct applicants to your site and have them submit their resumes. Every candidate is stored with their original resume documents for searching, sorting, scoring, and tracking through your hiring process.

To learn more about how 360 PSG can help turn your website into your top HR performer, contact an account manager today! 716.829.7373.