Job Listing Tips

Watch Our Quick Guide to Creating Effective Legal Job Listings

We recommend that you read our guide to creating an effective job listing to maximise the success rate of your listing on our website and the search engines.

Before you start creating your listing, please read our guide to creating an effective law job listing which will help you to increase your success rate.

Use Unique Content

It is important that you do not simply copy and paste the job description that you have posted elsewhere. In SEO (search engine optimisation) terms, such content is classed as duplicate content by the search engines and it will not rank on the SERPs (search engine results pages). Duplicate content will effectively reduce the search engine rankings of your job post and in some cases, search engines may even choose not to add your job listing to their index. This will reduce the organic search engine traffic for your job post.

Write Longer Content

Instead, do spend some time in writing a unique description for your law job posting. It is recommended that you write at least 500 words insofar as it is possible. Longer content tends to do better in the organic search engine rankings and at the same time, provides more information to prospective applicants.

Use Headings

When creating the description for your job listing, you can make use of H1 to H4 headings. Such headings will help with the search engine optimisation aspect of your job listing.

Include Relevant Keywords

When writing up the description for your job listing, do include relevant keywords to help your job listing to rank even better organically! By default, you would do this automatically.

Include Call-to-Action Phrases

Research has shown that call-to-action phrases tend to perform very well because they add a sense of urgency to a job listing. Some call-to-action phrases may include: “Apply Now!”, “Contact Us”, “Immediate Start”, “Deadline”, etc.

Format Important Phrases

Do not be afraid to use capitals or put very important phrases in bold or italics or even a different colour. You may want to draw an applicant’s attention to important pieces of text not only to increase your success rate but to also get the right applicants to apply for your vacancies. For example, if a candidate has to be qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales, you may want to put it in bold.

Be as Complete as Possible

The ‘devil is in the details’. Prospective candidates will want as much information about your job post as possible before making an effort to apply for your job vacancy. It is therefore recommended that you provide as much detail on the job listing as possible, including but not limited to, role, responsibilities, type of law firm or organisation, pay, etc.

Write Complete Job Listing Titles

You should aim to ensure that the title of your job listing tells the candidate as much as possible about the role being recruited for without them having to read through the job descriptions. To better illustrate this point, let us give you a few examples of a good and bad job listing.

Example of a bad job listing title: Solicitor Wanted

Example of a good job listing title: Newly Qualified Solicitor Wanted for a Leading US law firm (Immediate Start)

As you can see, the bad job listing title is too vague. It begs many questions such as what law firm is recruiting, the level of experience wanted and it lacks any call-to-action. On the other hand, the example of a good job listing is good because it tells a prospective candidate the experience level required, type of law firm and the fact that this vacancy has an immediate start.

In SEO terms, the example of a good job listing title is known as a “long-tail keyword” because it has a lot of keywords inside of it including “Newly Qualified”, “Solicitor”, “US law firm”. Such job listing titles tend to rank very highly on the SERPs (search engine results pages) because the job title is very specific. On the other hand, coming back to the example of the bad job listing title, it is bad in the sense that it will be extremely difficult for the job listing to rank on the search engines because it is too vague and too generic.

As a general rule of thumb, there is no ‘rocket science’ to creating an effective job listing title. Simply write what the job is about. Usually, you can use a formula [experience level] [role] [type of law firm] [city or region] [start date/salary or any other call-to-action phrase].

Select the Right Category

When posting your job listing, you will need to select the category that is most relevant to your job listing. Sometimes, instead of running searches, candidates like to browse through categories so it is important that your listing is in the right category.

Enter Relevant Job Tags

Job tags are essentially keywords that most closely describe your job listing. These tags help candidates to find relevant jobs. It is usually recommended that you enter up to 5 tags. For example, tags may include words such as “NQ”, “newly qualified lawyer”, “solicitor”, “paralegal”, “Russian”. Try to put yourself in the shoes of a potential applicant and what they would search for.

Make Use of External “Apply for Job” link

You may wish to direct all applications to an external link (i.e. your website).

Upload Your Logo

It is always recommended that you upload your logo to convey a professional image to prospective applicants. A logo also helps to capture attention as opposed to job listings without a logo.

Include your Company Details

It is recommended that you include your company details including a description of your company be it a law firm or a legal recruitment company, your contact details and other information that you deem relevant. Prospective candidates may want to give you a call or send you an email as opposed to just submitting their CV via our website.

Never Assume Anything

It is all too easy to assume certain things, such as the fact that a prospective candidate may have to be qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales by way of example. By providing as much information in your job listing, you will automatically weed out the candidates that are not right for the job.