“It may seem like an odd thing to say” admits Fiona Farrell, Product Director of IrishJobs.ie “the measure of our success is just how unnoticed our technology is by jobseekers”
IrishJobs.ie has been a leader in the Irish recruitment industry for over twenty years, with 1.5 million jobseekers visiting the website each month searching for jobs from a range of industries and from companies that vary in size from multinationals to SMEs, all who use IrishJobs.ie to advertise their roles.
Fiona leads a formidable Rec Tech team of designers and developers who channel IrishJobs.ie’s years of recruitment experience into creating innovative and groundbreaking recruitment technology to deliver a better job hunt for candidates and a better hiring experience for employers.
Fiona explains “Our aim is to provide jobseekers with a smooth, successful job hunting experience. We want to show them jobs that are perfect for them and then we want them to be able to apply for them quickly and easily. If my team and I are doing our job well then the jobseeker shouldn’t even notice the technology that supported their search for a new role.”
And there is an impressive array of talented IT professionals working hard in the background to make that happen. Over the past decade IrishJobs.ie has fostered and grown a team of designers, developers, UX and SEO professionals who can now claim to be Ireland’s most experienced and successful Rec Tech team.
“We start with the jobseeker. They expect us to know them and to know exactly what jobs they’re looking for” says Fiona.
“To meet that need our Rec Tech team developed and built a bespoke algorithm which interprets jobseekers’ behaviour. So, whether it’s the type of job they’re looking for or the location they’re in, we can interpret their behavioural data to present them with more personalised content. We can present more relevant jobs to the user, based on their activity. The more active the person is on the IrishJobs.ie then the better their user experience will be.””
Evolving Technology
Like most sites at the time, when IrishJobs.ie was founded over 22 years ago, it used a basic keyword search which indexed all the job opportunities. Today, the team at IrishJobs.ie have built a powerful internal search engine which powers searches based on an anthology of job titles and synonyms, to ensure refined search results.
“Our search results are more layered so we can provide more quality results. For example, our software knows that if you are looking for a job as a senior engineer then you are not looking for junior roles, it will simply stop showing them to you. It’s a much smarter approach to searching.”
It’s not just the jobseeker’s experience which this cutting-edge tech in recruitment has positively impacted, it allows employers to attract and engage with candidates who are right for their roles.
“It means when a recruiter is advertising a role on IrishJobs.ie, employers can be confident that the people with suitable skills will see the job,” says Fiona.
“One of the things that has always been valuable about IrishJobs.ie from a client’s point of view is that we always deliver quality candidates. And, we make that a priority for all our development and innovation projects.
But it’s not just about how people search for jobs while they are on the IrishJobs.ie site. Fiona and her Rec Tech team spearheaded a project that looked a more sophisticated way to bring job hunters from search engines to the leading Irish jobs website in the first place.
“We know that many people search for a job on a search engine, such as Google, rather than coming to our homepage directly first. We already had a very successful SEO strategy up and running, thanks to our dedicated SEO team, but they wanted to take it to a whole other level.” explains Fiona.
“Our SEO and Rec Tech team joined forces. As before, our jobs are ranked and optimised for search engines so that they appear at the top of the results when people run a search. So, while the new mechanics are more or less “top secret”, our functionality now goes way beyond what’s been done before. We can provide a better experience for people job hunting, allowing them to see not only what they’re looking for, but also jobs professionals just like them are looking at too. We’re hoping this takes away the fear of missing potential opportunities that previous search habits might have caused. It also helps nullifies the impact of changing trends in job titles and descriptions.”
This forward-looking and creative approach is a huge part of the company’s DNA maintains Fiona.
“We are part of Stepstone, which is one of the biggest recruitment brands in the world and, across the group employees are encouraged to work together and put forward submissions of new products in an annual innovation competition.
“There’s a substantial monetary prize for the winning idea. The idea is taken and incubated and developed, it’s treated like a start-up but with all the resources of a multinational behind it. Some of our most exciting ideas and products have started as a proposal within a group in the business, and that’s hugely motivating. ”
Future plans
The company will continue to innovate and look for new ways to improve the hiring experience for jobseeker and recruiters alike.
“I think the unique thing about our business is that we all have personal experience to draw on, after all, we have all been jobseekers. It gives us a focus and a commitment to making the job hunting process better for everyone.
“We’ll be continuing the personalisation of searches and we are also aiming to improve our e-mail communication with jobseekers so we can support jobseekers in throughout the job hunting cycle. The more tailored and relevant to the candidate we can make jobs then the better the applications the recruiter will receive
“Digital is a fast business. You need to stay one step ahead all the time. It’s essential you pay attention to your audience and how they’re using your service. We’ve got years of experience in recruitment so our Rec Tech team are able to take that information and use it to drive design and development to will deliver the successful job hunt we want for all jobseekers and the successful recruitment campaign we want for all employers.