When choosing a job title when you are advertising a job, you need to think like an applicant. Our specialised team spend a large portion of their day advising our clients on the best / least searched job titles. It is our job to ensure you are aware of what job titles will work and what job titles won’t work.
This article looks to answer the following questions:
| What job titles should I use for recruitment adverts? |
| What are recruitment job titles? |
| What are the best IT Job titles? |
Firstly, job titles which may be common in your workplace, may not be common job titles anywhere else. For example, “IT Ninja or “Extreme Unicyclist” are not your average answers when someone is asked what they want to be when they grow up. So, why would it be something anyone would search for when job hunting online?
Job titles need to be generic, searchable and the most frequently searched keyword term on the job boards. This will ensure that you are targeting the right candidates in the right sector. They also have to be as fewer words as possible and be clean job titles.
Saying that, even common job titles are not necessarily “job board friendly” such as .Net SQL Developer, whilst this is a common job title, in the last month alone, this title has only been searched 51 times on one job board, whereas SQL Developer has been searched 4233 times in the same period. It’s advisable to do some research (or we can do it for you!) before you place your adverts on the job boards.
Here are some examples of job titles that are not likely to be searched as much as a more generic title:
• Deep Sea Operator
• Computer and Information Systems Manager
• Data Cabling and Audio-Visual Installation Engineer / Assistant
• Assistant Regional Planning and Permitting Manager
• Collaboration and Transformation Manager
• Information Worker
How many of you can say you’ve searched the above, or even know what these recruitment job titles mean? Does your average Joe know what a Deep-Sea Operator or Knowledge Specialist even does? I can assure you, we don’t and we’re in the recruitment industry – so imagine the perils for applicants.
Applicants are more likely to search ‘Developer’ or ‘Systems Manager’ than ‘.Net SQL Developer’ and ‘Computer and Information Systems Manager’ in fact ‘Developer’ was searched a whopping 30,784 times last month and whilst it may seem very generic, this is where ensuring your advert is full of information on the job itself comes in, to ensure you don’t have any rogue applications!
Remember, the role itself can be explained within the body of the advert, it doesn’t have to happen in the title and with more job board recruitment sites working on an exact match for job title SEO – less is more! Length aside, some titles are so ambiguous we can’t decipher what they want – i.e. Knowledge Specialist? I know stuff, do I qualify?
Here at Flat Fee Recruiter, we have come across many discombobulating job titles for adverts but fortunately, our professional copywriters and in-house expert operations team are on hand to advise on suitable alternatives that are more likely to come up in applicant searches. After all, enhancing search engine optimisation and visibility are crucial factors in getting a role in front of the right people and making the recruitment campaign a success.