Yes, a Careers Site Can Outrank Job Boards and Even Indeed in Google Search

When recruiters think SEO and Google rankings, they assume that Indeed and job boards dominate the search result pages, and careers sites for individual businesses cannot compete with them.

Is this common misconception stopping you from investing in SEO? What if we told you that it is possible to have your careers site achieve first page search results, top positions and in some cases, even outrank Indeed?

We were able to achieve this for industry leaders, including Virgin Atlantic and the John Lewis Partnership across both niche and less specialised areas.

Proving the misconception wrong

Google’s algorithms are getting even more advanced. Over the last few years, they’ve become better at both identifying user intent and using machine learning and AI to continuously refine search results to meet users’ expectations.

This means that if your SEO is done in line with best practice and with a long-term approach consistent with Google’s vision for search, then having your careers site outrank job boards is within your reach.

That’s where we come in.

At Enhance Media, our work is underpinned by research and data. Our team use technical expertise and innovation to deliver solutions that help our clients improve their recruitment marketing.

We bring our clients’ SEO strategies in line with Google’s focus on intent and optimise copy for their latest large language models, including,

  • BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers)
  • MUM (Multitask Uniform Model)
  • PaLM2 (Pathways Language Model).

With this approach, we have proven over and over again that careers sites can rank high in search results and attract high-quality talent.

Reaching new heights as an associated employer

Outranking the likes of Indeed and Glassdoor in Google search is often easier for employers who associate themselves with a particular recruitment niche. This is known as a job taxonomy.

A theoretical example of a job taxonomy would be a company that deals in dairy. This company would likely have a taxonomy in dairy industry-related roles, just like a bakery would have a taxonomy in baking roles.

One case study that proves that the common misconception in question can be defeated is Virgin Atlantic, who Google and candidates alike associate with cabin crew and pilot jobs.

Enhance Media undertook SEO and copywriting work for them to optimise their careers site and increase visibility for these key roles.

Virgin Atlantic have since gained high rankings in Google for the unbranded searches most relevant to their offerings. For example, a candidate searching ‘Pilot jobs’ or “cabin crew jobs” sees a listing for Virgin Atlantic’s dedicated page before both job boards and many other close competitors.

 

Pilot jobs search in Google

Cabin crew jobs search in Google

Another employer associated with a job taxonomy is the John Lewis Partnership which includes both John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners. They partnered with us to ensure their SEO was attracting new talent as efficiently as possible.

By applying similar strategies, we were able to achieve a number one listing for the term ‘Supermarket Assistant jobs’, as shown below:

Supermarket assistant jobs search in Google

By building highly relevant localised pages on the JLP careers site, we were also able to secure top rankings for terms such as “delivery driver jobs London”. This boosted visibility for the client’s jobs in the places they hire the most.

Delivery driver jobs search in Google

This first page listing shows for both London based candidates searching “delivery driver jobs” and those searching “delivery driver jobs London”. It also appears above the likes of Indeed and Jobsite.

Improving your ranking as an unassociated employer

It’s not essential that your employer brand is closely associated with certain areas of work. Whilst supermarket assistants may be closely associated with the John Lewis Partnership, the more specialised role of “visual merchandising” is not.

Despite this and through our tried and tested approach to SEO, we successfully ranked JLP’s page above the likes of Glassdoor and Reed for those searching “visual merchandising jobs”.

We’ve seen how the right approach to SEO can help you outrank job boards and competitors when having a job taxonomy. However, this can also be the case for unassociated employers too, or more simply companies that don’t necessarily have a niche or particular associated role.

 

Visual merchandising jobs search In Google

If you want to develop your recruitment marketing strategy and see how we can help you reach out to new candidates in Google by outranking job board and aggregators, visit our SEO page, browse our latest case studies or get in touch with our expert team today.

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Enhance Media – The science behind online recruitment.