We all know how busy the first quarter of the year can be for recruiters. It’s a time when many people make the decision to move positions or change careers. Now, as we head into the second half of 2016, things may slow down a little as we near the end of the tax year.
To keep you up to date and relevant, we’ve taken a look at why recruiters should use Google Trends as a recruitment tool.
What is Google Trends?
Google Trends was launched in 2006 as a free web search tool similar to Google Search. What makes Trends different is that you can get real-time data from the searches you make. As well as listing the top 40 stories over the last 24 hours, Trends allows users to search a specific keyword and tailor the results to include times and locations. You can also see what countries are most interested in that keyword and even narrow your results down further to a specific region.
Since Trends was launched, Google has added in a host of features to allow users to get a vast and accurate amount of data. Each one is of use to the forward thinking recruiter.
Trends
The Trends feature allows you to see what stories have been searched for the most over the last 24 hours. This list can be changed to a specific country or a certain industry, for example, business or recruitment. This will then bring up another list of the top stories in that industry and in the chosen country.
This is a great tool for recruiters to keep up to date with the current trends in their industry, as well as those they're recruiting for. The top trends section is useful for developing content for blogs or social media posts as you will be able to see what people are interested in and tailor your content around this.
Explore
Google Trends lets you search keywords by putting the word or phrase into the explore section and analysing the data that's returned. This feature can be useful when it comes to writing up job adverts.
As well as allowing you to determine the interest of a specific keyword, you can also measure that keyword against another four words to see which is the most popular, and then incorporate them into your advert.
Interest Over Time
This feature lets you see how a keyword has performed over time via a graph. The search function is set from 2004-onwards but it can be changed to a specific year and a specific country. You can also choose what type of results you’d like to view, i.e. an image search or video search.
You can use this feature to your advantage by looking at when people have been most interested in a keyword and plan around this. For example, if people are searching for ‘temporary jobs’ more in the summer than the winter, then you will know to create content about temporary jobs in the summer when it's most likely to be searched for.
News Headlines
Last year, Google added an exciting new feature called news headlines in the interest over time graph. This tells users why a search term has risen in popularity by showing news headlines from numerous sources on that day. Recruiters can use this feature to view what people in their industry have been searching for recently and create relevant content that will attract and engage candidates and clients alike.
Regional Interest
The regional interest feature shows how well a search term performs in specific regions. You can be even more specific by changing the setting from regional to city for an even deeper insight.
This can be good for international recruiters who may not know about certain areas they are recruiting for. This feature will let you see what search terms are being used most by people in a region or city, and the words that are being searched for most can be inserted into the job advert.
Related Searches
If you’re struggling to find the right words for your job advert, Google Trends can help you with ideas in their related searches feature. This shows a list of relevant topics and queries to the term you searched for. You can then click on the rising section, which will show any search terms similar to yours which have been rising over the last 24 hours. If the term says ‘breakout’ next to it then this means it's increased by more than 5000%, which is a good indication it’s going to be the most searched term in the coming days.
Good luck, and hopefully the above tips will help you get to grips with Google Trends, increasing your engagement with candidates and clients through targeted, relevant, and specific data.
