By Debbie Cai

Most marketers have at least heard of search engine marketing, some might even be modestly involved with it. But few are likely to have thought about its possibilities as for recruitment.

Using search as a recruitment tool India-based child rights advocates Child Rights and You (CRY) received nearly 5,000 applications from 150 cities in 25 states worldwide, with over 4,000,000 ad impressions served, for 13 positions. The NGO hired all 13 through this method, and only paid per-resume received and a per-candidate-hired bonus.

“It works for a recruitment location anywhere in the world, looking to hire people from any specified geography, for any given profile,� Geeta Sethi, country manager, Pinstorm Technologies, which worked with CRY, said. “Through search engine marketing (SEM), we have the ability to reach professionals who are not actively seeking a change — they would not have registered with job sites nor would respond to job postings — therefore, the quality of candidates is significantly superior as compared to traditional CV generation methods used.�

According to Sethi, search engines receive millions of queries everyday, and only a portion are for career-related search terms — which will obviously be expensive to buy. However, companies can serve up ads for cheaper search terms for less-obviously related queries to reach potential candidates who might not even be looking for a new job. For example, someone querying ‘linear programming’ or ‘regression analysis’ may be the kind a media agency is looking for; or someone searching ‘personal grooming’ may be right for the hospitality industry.

SEM as a process works best when campaigns are optimised — for a given objective, use the best possible combination of search terms, creative and landing pages which trigger the best quality and highest rate of response. Therefore, it is most suited to large organisations with recurring staffing needs, such as insurance companies looking for motivated agents, telecom companies looking for networking specialists, hotels looking for presentable front office staff and so on.

“We reach out to the best talent, whose consumption of internet and search is far higher than that of traditional media. We provide a securitised web based console for convenient access, sharing and managing of a database for a large volume of jobs across industries and countries,� Sethi said. “This process is more cost-effective as compared to traditional media, because clients pay only for results.�