In addition to a good recruitment website, there is more you can do to strengthen the candidate journey. Blogs can serve many purposes, but the most important is that you write blogs that inform, inspire, and ultimately convince candidates. By understanding target audiences and distinguishing different needs, you can achieve this. In this article, we will tell you exactly how to do that.

With your Booston recruitment website, you can do various things to enhance the candidate journey. In this blog, we will delve into multiple forms and flavors of the Booston blog features. The Booston blog module doesn't necessarily have to be used for blogs. Booston's blog features are multifunctional and can take on various forms and flavors. In this blog, we will cover the most common forms: blog, news, and showcase feeds.

The importance? There are organizations that spend large amounts on advertising vacancies to find the right candidate. Unfortunately, organizations often fall short once the candidate lands on the recruitment website. It's often difficult to navigate the recruitment website and is perceived as boring. This can lead to low application conversion rates.

"First impressions last," nowadays this is no longer a smile and handshake, but a good recruitment website and thereby a strong candidate journey. You have the opportunity to inform, inspire, motivate, convince, and activate the candidate on your recruitment website. You can achieve this by, for example, applying the employer brand so that the candidate gets an impression of the work environment and culture, showcasing the impact of the potential position to motivate the candidate, expressing the mission, vision, and strategy to activate the candidate, sharing the latest news from the industry to inform the candidate, or telling about the latest cool projects to inspire and convince candidates. Everything is possible with Booston's renewed blog features.

Different strategies can be employed to achieve a strong candidate journey, for example: informing, inspiring, convincing, or activating the target audience. In this blog, we will not delve into the question of which strategy is best, but we will show you step by step how you can set up and use Booston's renewed blog module. With Booston's new blog module, you can strengthen the candidate journey by displaying blogs where the difference is made. You can apply the Booston blog module in multiple forms and flavors, for example: blog feed, news feed, and showcasing why the organization or vacancy is so great.

(Don't have a Booston account yet? No worries. Contact us. We'll look together at how you can start using Booston's Blogs feature as soon as possible).

Contents

• Strategy
• Preparation
• Setting up blog attributes
• Managing blogs
• Setting up blog and vacancy pages
• Search Engine Optimization

1. Strategy

In this chapter, we will take you through a number of forms and flavors that can contribute to strengthening the candidate journey: blog, news, and showcase feeds. The starting point of all strategies should always be to: inform, inspire, convince, and activate the candidate.

1.1 Blog feed

The most well-known form is, of course, a blog feed. A blog is actually a kind of diary of an organization that is regularly updated. Blogs are often focused on topics relevant to the target audience. Not only to improve the candidate journey but also to be more relevant on search engines. Additionally, you can, for example, effectively express the employer brand through blogs to give candidates an impression of the work environment and culture. Blogs can also function to discuss certain trends or issues.

1.2 News feed

Booston's blog features can also be used as a news feed. In a news feed, you ensure that candidates are aware of the latest relevant news. In this way, you can inform and thereby activate candidates.

A good example is a case of several large marketing organizations. There was a shortage of personnel within the marketing industry, but there was an industry where there was a shortage of jobs. Psychology students couldn't find a job after obtaining their diploma. The marketing organizations saw an opportunity, as psychology aligns well with marketing. They managed to convince the target audience to enter the marketing industry with the right content about the latest developments and issues within psychology. A good example of how news can be a decisive factor in reaching and convincing target audiences.

1.3 Showcase feed

You can also use Booston's blog features as a showcase feed. A showcase feed is actually a display case where things or environments and situations are presented in an attractive way.

For example, a showcase feed can be used to emphasize the impact of the potential position or to showcase projects. By showing projects and talking about them, you can inspire and convince candidates to apply. There are many possibilities for this and are often industry-dependent. The starting point should be to show what makes the organization distinctive.

1. Preparation

Before you start using the renewed blog features, it's important to take a good look at your current content and possibilities. There are a number of things you need to keep in mind: Which strategies am I going to apply? Which industries or categories can I distinguish? Which categories can intrigue and activate my target audiences?

Start by setting up the strategy and which industries or categories you can distinguish. Distinguishing relevant industries or categories should underpin the strategy. Think, for example, of industries like marketing and sales or categories like junior, medior, and senior professionals. In this way, you can intrigue and activate target audiences with relevant blogs.

Once you have managed to distinguish different industries or categories, you can start setting up Booston's renewed blog module using the following steps.

2. Setting up blog attributes

The first step is setting up blog attributes. Subsequently, the blogs are linked to the industries or categories. This way, you can display content where it really makes a difference.

Open the Booston backend, go to settings > attributes, and then select blog attributes. In this menu, you can easily add industries or categories. By adding these attributes, you create tags to which you can link blogs. This ensures that relevant blogs can be easily found on your recruitment website.

To display blogs in relevant places, the blogs and vacancies must be linked. For this, there are the general attributes. Go to settings > attributes. Choose an attribute category that contains all relevant target audiences. Add attributes if necessary.

Are you working with an ATS? Then you will need to create the attributes in the ATS. It's important to link the attributes to a vacancy that is live on your Booston recruitment website. By linking the attributes to a vacancy, they are imported into the Booston backend.

Don't forget to index the attributes for Google for Jobs and other channels. Have you already done this? Then you can skip this step. Go to settings > attributes and select the relevant attribute. Enter the correct industry for each attribute here.

3. Managing blogs

In this step, you will create a blog. Do you already have one or more blogs on your Booston recruitment website? Go directly to 3.1.

Open the Booston backend, go to content > blog, and then press the create button to create a blog. Select the languages you want to publish and press continue. You are now ready to write the blog.

First, the page info, here you can enter a title, add a photo, select an author, select a blog category, and add keywords. Enter a title that is relevant to the target audience and ensures that your blog is easy to find on the recruitment website and the internet. Once you have added all the page info, it's time to write the blog. You can easily do this by adding the text and any photos or videos in the main content.

Is the blog ready to be published? Press save, and the blog will be immediately online on your recruitment website. Do you want to publish the blog on a specific date and/or time? Then go to the blog's settings by pressing the wrench. Here you can easily select a publication date and time.

3.1

After setting up the blog, the attributes come into play. The attributes are crucial to display the blogs where they are relevant. In the subcategory of the main settings, you can find the filters. Select the relevant filter(s) you had prepared to link the blogs to relevant vacancies.

4. Setting up blog and vacancy pages

Are you done with all the above steps? Then you can now start setting up the blog and vacancy pages. Check if all steps have been correctly executed for setting up the pages. Without the correct settings and linked attributes, the features will not work. Additionally, all pages must have side elements, so choose a side panel layout.

Imagine you have many IT vacancies, wouldn't it be great to show relevant IT content to potential candidates? By following the steps below, you can display relevant content on the vacancy pages. This can be done, for example, by linking IT vacancies to IT content. This way, you strengthen the candidate journey and improve application success.

Start by setting up your blog page. Go to content > blog, click on the wrench icon, and select the job page. Here you can easily configure your blog page. This dynamic page is used for every blog you publish.

Below is an example of a blog page. Start by selecting a side panel layout and click save. Add the “Blog list side” element to ensure blogs are displayed. Then click the lock icon to edit the element or click default to configure the element at the top level. Under blog presentation type, you can activate the option with one click to only show relevant blogs. Choose “Only show blogs with matching job filters” from the dropdown. This setting ensures that blogs with the same attributes are linked to each other. From now on, only blogs relevant to the specific candidate will be shown. The result is an improved candidate journey.

Done setting up the blog page? Then it's time to configure your vacancy page as well. Go to recruitment > jobs, click the wrench icon, and select the job page. Follow the same steps as described above.

Now that both pages are properly configured, blogs will be displayed exactly where they make a real impact. This way, you strengthen the candidate journey and can improve the conversion of applications.

5. Search Engine Optimization

Besides being able to display blogs in relevant places, you also want to generate more traffic to your recruitment website. No problem! With Booston's blog features, you can easily add relevant titles and meta descriptions to improve your visibility in search engines.

Meta descriptions are texts used by search engines to increase the likelihood that a candidate will click on your recruitment website. This results in higher relevance in search engines and more traffic to your recruitment platform:

• Developers Google

A meta description tag generally informs and interests users with a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about. They are like a pitch that convinces the user that the page is exactly what they're looking for” (Developers Google, 2021)

Would you like to increase your relevance and thus the visibility of your recruitment website? Go to content > blog, select the blog to which you want to add a meta description, and then click the wrench icon. Here you will find everything related to SEO, including the meta descriptions.

Want to learn more about meta descriptions and how to write a high-quality one? Then read this article.

Also interested in Booston’s job marketing capabilities? Request a free demo.