Employment marketplace SEEK has announced two major product developments for the site, spearheading the company's intense innovation roadmap for the next two years.
As a result of the revamp, the website says its significant investment into its technology capabilities over the past three years has laid the foundation to now aggressively deliver enhanced user experiences, exemplified by these latest products.
"Our driving goal is to match more people with job opportunities than any other organisation," says Michael Ilczynski, MD of Product Development and Strategy, SEEK.
"We'll do this by offering the best personalised experience for finding job opportunities and candidates by drawing on our rich data and analytics to make the process more effective and efficient,"
The product developments launched are part of SEEK's major initiative to improve its search functionality says Ilczynski, giving hirers more ways to effectively target and connect with not only active job seekers, but also those people who are monitoring the market for opportunities
Better targeting solutions for hirers
SEEK has integrated two new features into its Jobseeker Profile product to allow hirers to make targeted and more personal connections with candidates they want to apply for their job.
When a hirer posts an ad on SEEK, they have access to a rapidly growing pool of active and monitoring job seekers, which as of today sits at around 1.6 million.
With the new 'Send Job' feature, hirers can send their job ad directly to specific candidates they want to apply, and from December, they will also be able to send a personalised message to select candidates through the 'Message' feature.
"We have seen over 41,000 Send Job's sent since we started trialling it in September, and it has been really well received by hirers and candidates alike," Ilczynski says.
"It's totally redefining the way people think about and use SEEK.
"For hirers, it allows them to increase the effectiveness of their ad by making more meaningful connections with ideal candidates, ensuring more relevant candidates apply.
"Candidates benefit by being alerted to strong job opportunities while still protecting their privacy."
Currently SEEK offers 20 free Send Job actions for every job ad placed but when Message comes available later in the year, hirers will be given five free Message actions for every job ad placed.
Improved search
Job search is the fundamental activity on the site and SEEK's ability to match job seekers to relevant opportunities is set to get more sophisticated with the launch of a new search platform.
The new job search enables a much easier, faster and transparent refinement of results to quickly pinpoint where the opportunities are, and are not. It also enables SEEK's search function to be increasingly responsive to the rapidly changing jobs landscape and deliver a more intelligent online job search process.
"At SEEK, we are changing the way people search for jobs and candidates through our unique matching experience," Ilczynski adds.
"Having the best search technology is imperative to help us accurately understand people's intent when they search, efficiently access and analyse our data and then deliver the most relevant matches for a world-class experience.
"Our big focus for 2014 is to harness the data behind the technology to deliver the very best experience for hirers and candidates.
"We want to be a partner for every company; helping them in their talent acquisition strategy by matching them with the right candidates and helping them connect with them.
"We also want to assist people in their career path, allowing them to discover great job opportunities they might not have considered before.
"That is why we continue to invest in creating a marketplace that helps match people with the right opportunities."
