Do you want to learn more about the company next door? Look at its job postings. Do you have a recruitment platform to improve? Well, you know what to do. That's right. Turn to job posting data.
A well-crafted job posting can tell you about the state of a business, market, or industry. In this article, we'll try to unlock the power of job postings and discuss how B2B companies and other businesses use them for strategic insights. We'll also touch on job analysis.
What are job postings, and why should you care?
A job ad notifies the public that the company has a job opening. You can find it on social media, print, or any online job posting space.
A job posting includes vital information, such as job title, location, company, duties and responsibilities, requirements, and benefits. Job postings can also be posted on social media, but they are mainly made for job boards and career sites.
What information can you get from job postings?
Job postings are essential for attracting top talent, so companies are willing to invest a lot of time and resources into making their job postings pop. It's like plain old marketing but targeted at job candidates. The company with the most appealing job postings gets the best hires.
So, what kind of information can you get from looking at job postings?
- Job specification – General information about the job and recommended worker attributes;
- Job scope – An description detailing the key responsibilities of an employee;
- Job duties – Specific activities that an employee in a particular position is expected to complete;
- Responsibilities – Critical aspects of a job that an employee must perform to keep the position;
- Job requirements – A list of specific qualifications, education, knowledge, and skills needed for the job;
- Qualifications – The formal education and previous work experience needed for performing a job;
- Job expectations – A combination of hard and soft skills needed to perform the job successfully and the performance expected from an employee that aligns with company goals;
- Exposure to risk – Potential dangers and health hazards involved in performing a specific job;
- Working conditions – A breakthrough of conditions under which an employee is expected to work;
- Company information – An overview of the company and a brief introduction to its work culture;
- Instructions how to apply – A preferred method of applying for the position and required documents.
That's a lot of data that can be turned into actionable insights.
What are the benefits of collecting data for job analysis?
All this job-related information aimed at candidates is just as valuable to companies that base their strategic decisions on continuous market research and job analysis.
If you're running a forward-looking organization in a competitive market, you know everything about the dangers of blind guessing. You also understand that data is critical for success.
The amount of data you can find in job postings is invaluable. It's specific, concise, straight-from-the-shoulder information about job openings and requirements, detailed job descriptions that can immensely help growing companies.
How can it help? Here are some of the benefits of collecting job posting data:
Enriched talent intelligence
The job analysis process can give you an overview of specific employee skills and qualifications currently in high demand but low supply and help you understand and bridge existing skill gaps within your own company. It's also a brilliant way to study your competition.
Improved talent sourcing
In addition to skill gaps and competitors' workforce, analyzing job posting data allows you to identify emerging trends and changes in the job market. With this knowledge, companies can improve its talent acquisition strategies and enhance its workforce with top talent.
On-point job matching
Job posting data from job boards and career sites and can tell you a lot about an employer. For example, looking at certifications, experience levels, and keywords can help you fine-tune your recruitment strategies and refine your job descriptions.
Market dynamics insight
Think of everything you can learn about your market just from analyzing job postings. Job market trends can reveal emerging job roles, in-demand skills, and growth areas within your industry. This type of information could be critical for talent acquisition and workforce planning.
Faster business growth
Behind every growing company, there's a capable and motivated workforce. Job posting data allows you to find and hire the best people, but there's more. Large-scale datasets enable you to conduct predictive analysis and extract unique insights.
How do companies use large-scale job posting datasets?
Now that you know why job postings and job posting data are valuable sources of information, let's see how companies use this data to grow better and more competitive.
Enhancing HR and hiring platforms
Is your company using an HR platform to guide its hiring process? Or perhaps you're developing hiring platforms for other companies? In either case, large-scale job posting datasets can enhance your HR platform.
In addition to that, job posting data can also tell you how effective current recruitment strategies are, what job offers are competitive, which specialists are in demand, and more.
Analyzing recruiting trends
Whether you keep hiring the wrong people or need a brand new recruitment strategy to support growth, analyzing large-scale job posting datasets will help you.
Companies use job posting data in different ways:
- Evaluating recruitment strategies. One of the reasons to analyze job posting data is to assess the effectiveness of recruitment strategies, including (but not limited to) job descriptions, qualifications required, and advertising channels.
- Identifying in-demand skills. You can analyze job posting data to identify the most sought-after skills in specific industries or regions. It can improve talent acquisition strategies and training programs.
- Understanding market competition. If there are plenty of job postings like yours, watch out. Fierce competition for talent requires a special recruitment strategy, as well as competitive compensation packages.
- Predicting talent shortages. Job postings allow you to look at historical data and conduct predictive analysis. This knowledge enables proactive measures like workforce planning, upskilling current employees, or exploring alternative recruitment strategies.
Conducting market analysis
Job postings hold the key to busy markets. When businesses and B2B companies need new angles of looking at the market, they often turn to job posting data for actionable insights and trend signals.
We've already mentioned some of the information that job postings can reveal, the most precious of which are skill gaps, competitors' hiring patterns, talent availability, and industry demands.
Additionally, large-scale job posting datasets can provide valuable insights into the market demand for specific job roles or skills. This information can tell you a lot about the emerging trends in your industry and allow you to develop products and services that align with these trends.
It's especially helpful in fast-evolving markets, where job posting data can give away the next big thing.
Monitoring other companies
The type and amount of information you can get on other companies just by analyzing their job postings is virtually limitless. And this goes beyond competitor analysis. Job postings can also help expanding companies that are looking for partners, as well as B2Bs in pursuit of new leads.
If there's a company you are interested in for any of these reasons, you should be actively analyzing its hiring patterns, the number of open positions, and the types of skills that this company is seeking. Just look at the conclusions you can draw from doing that regularly:
- Information about the company's talent acquisition strategies and talent pool;
- Insights into the company's growth strategy, expansion plans, tech stack, and areas of focus;
- Insights into how competitive the talent market is in specific industries and regions.
Informing new product strategies
It's time to develop new products or services, but you don't know where to start? Believe it or not, the job analysis process can aid you with that, as well. By helping you get in tune with your competitors and the broader market, this information can show you missed opportunities, untapped demand, and future trends.
What is job analysis, and why is it important?
Some of the many elements that job analysis takes into account are duties, tasks, responsibilities, and necessary skills a specific job entails, as well as qualifications, performance standards, expected outcomes, and work conditions involved.
Day-to-day tasks and long-term responsibilities play an equally important role in typical job analysis, the same as hard and soft skills needed for job success.
Job analysis is a crucial first step in the recruitment process. A deeper understanding of a job position is critical for successful employment. However, that doesn't mean that job analysis is not used for other purposes.
Data Sources for Job Analysis
Accurate and up-to-date job market data is crucial for effective job analysis. One reliable method to gather such data is through specialized jobs data sourcing solutions. Using APIs like jobs data API, you can access detailed and structured information about job postings, enabling data-driven insights for workforce planning and competitive analysis.
For those interested in learning more about how to gather job data efficiently, check out our guide on job scraping to discover techniques and best practices for collecting job postings data.
Final thoughts
As you can see, job posting data can help you improve strategic decision-making in key business areas, such as workforce planning, talent acquisition, or market positioning.
In one way or another, job postings could be a way to overcome the many challenges that have been stopping you from mastering the job market.
