Job-a-matic

How to Write a Quality Job Description

We’ve received word that job posters have asked some Job-a-matic publishers about how to put together a quality job listing. To aid you in a response, we’ve put together some info about well-written job descriptions.

In general, a good job description consists for four parts:

• Responsibilities/Duties
• Required Skills
• Optional Skills
• A brief blurb about the employers

Job seekers need to have enough information about the job to decide if it is an opportunity they are willing to pursue and assess if they have the needed background. It’s important to find a balance between excessively long job descriptions and those that do not provide enough information. Each section should be to the point while providing job seekers with enough information in order to make an informed decision when considering whether to apply to the job.

Within the description, don’t forget to include key terms and that describe the type of requirements needed for a person to perform well in a given position as well as words a someone might search for when looking for a job. It will help your jobs appear in the results when job seekers search for those keywords on SimplyHired.com and throughout the Simply Hired network. (Example: including Java or C++  proficiency in Software Engineer jobs)

And finally, a quick note on formatting: if your job description is a solid block of text, it is difficult for job seekers to see when they are—as well as are not—qualified for your position. Make it easy on them by dividing job descriptions into easy to read sections. Feel free to use bullet points to list off qualifications, so the job descriptions can easily become a checklist of requirements.

Current International Publisher Offering

Hello Job-a-matic publishers! As we mentioned recently and wrote a press release about, Simply Hired is now live in 17 countries, having launched localized job search sites for 16 countries outside of the U.S. since September of ’08.

What does this mean for you? Why, you now have the capability to add the job content from all of these international countries onto your site with our XML API. Our current platter of international job search sites include the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, India, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, Brazil, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Mexico, Japan and China.

To access the XML API, log into your Job-a-matic account and click over to the Advanced tab. There you will find the documentation to add this job content in your site. Note: We currently do not offer technical help in implementing the XML API.

We also recently launched an international widget and search box that you can add to your site. You can read more information in our post, Simply Hired Announces New Tools for International Publishers. At this point, there is no monetization for clicks on non-U.S jobs.

Have questions or comments? Post them in the comments area below!

Simply Hired Announces New Tools for International Publishers

Last Friday, Simply Hired released an announcement about our rapid international growth, as well as new publisher tools that allow Web developers to include relevant job content and job search capabilities on their sites. Since October 2008, Simply Hired has launched localized job search sites in 17 international markets and today serves over 2.2 million job seekers outside the US on five continents and in nine languages.

The release also announced that job widgets and job search boxes are now also available for all English-language localized sites, which include the U.S., the U.K., Canada, India and Australia. The free job widget and job search box enables Web publishers to offer their visitors highly relevant job content and search capabilities on their websites using Simply Hired job content data. The job widgets may be individually customized, allowing you to display jobs that are relevant to your particular articles or posts.

To add job widget or job search box to your site, click the publisher link from any English-language site. For example, from the Simply Hired U.K. site:

Once on the U.K. Publisher page, you will notice in the left-hand side navigation, links to the Job Search Box and Job Search Widget.

To implement the job search box or job widget, just customize the search terms and copy and paste the html provided into your page or article. Note that there is no monetization for either of these tools at this time.

Stay tuned for updates! A multi-language version of the job search widget is expected by the end of the year.

Advertising 101: Promoting Job Postings

A best practice as a publisher is to advertise the new postings added to your site’s Job-a-matic board. Why, you ask? The benefiting parties are threefold: Advertisers will rejoice for the additional advertising their jobs receive and for the increased number of applicants that result from it, visitors to your site will appreciate the new, fresh content your site offers them and continue coming back for more, and you will enjoy the increased traffic to your site and more profit.

Not a marketing or advertising major? Don’t fret, it’s easy to advertise jobs on your site and no formal education is needed. Here are a couple of ideas:

• Create a blog post announcing each new job listing, or a weekly announcement of the new listings added.
• Add job widgets throughout your site containing not only new, but relevant job listings to supplement your content.
• Tweet new job listings on your Twitter account* (this can be automated).
• Have a monthly newsletter? Include a list of the new job listings*.

Opportunities abound!

* Note: You may only Tweet and email organic jobs. Organic jobs are those listed in the More Job Postings from the Web section of your board. This does not include Sponsored jobs (under the Featured Jobs from the Web section).

Holiday Promotions 2009: Discount Codes and Packages!

It’s that time of the year again. The weather becomes chilly, holiday music starts playing on the radio, and you can hear the faint “ca-ching” sound from cash registers around the globe…

This holiday season, don’t let your job board get lost in the crowd. Instead, why don’t you promote your Job-a-matic job board with a percent discount or job posting package deal to make it stand out? They are simple to set up and just might be the incentive some people might need to post their jobs on your site.

Discount Codes
Discount codes are the perfect way to promote your job board to a large audience, such as on your website or in a newsletter. They work much like discounts in traditional advertisements you may be seeing now online: you set the code to grant the user a percentage or dollar discount off your regular job listing price. You determine the discount!

You also have the capabilities to limit the code to be used only on a certain number of jobs (“First 10 jobs posted get 50% off!”) or for a certain length of time (Now through the end of December take $10 off!”).

Job Packages
Job packages are geared for those customers who are interested in posting a large quantity of jobs. Your customers pay for the bundle up-front with the first posting, and subsequent job postings will not be charged as long as they enter their package code.

With job packages, you can set a specific amount of jobs in the package (“Post 3 jobs for $100”) or set the package code to allow an unlimited number of job postings for a set price (“$300 for unlimited postings this month only!”).

Both discount code and job packages can be found and set up in your Job-a-matic account under the Promote tab.

Happy Holidays!