GEO for recruitment | How do AI tools find and name you as an employer?

AI is not only changing the work of recruiters and marketers, but also the way jobseekers find jobs. With tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, you can train your own 'job agent' in no time to find the best-suited job for you. So how do you make sure your organisation or vacancy is mentioned in the results? With GEO for recruitment!

AI as an orientation source for a new job

Endlessly scrolling through job listings, scouring job boards, sifting through job texts. And then discover that the job doesn't fit. For jobseekers, this is anything but efficient. That is why more and more people are using AI tools to orientate themselves to a new job.

With ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini, for example, finding a matching employer or job opening is a piece of cake. You enter all your criteria and AI does the rest! Not surprisingly, more and more people are using these tools to orientate themselves on a transfer or find the best-matching vacancies.

According to figures from the Intelligence Group, around 10 per cent of jobseekers and those looking to change jobs are already using an AI tool in their search. Among the under-30s, this figure is even higher. This percentage is expected to continue rising and to exceed 30% by 2027, making AI at least one of the top five recruitment channels.

SEO vs. GEO

This development means that, as a recruitment marketer, you should not only be concerned with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), but that GEO (Generative Engine Optimization - being found and mentioned by AI) deserves at least as much attention. The core of SEO and GEO is the same: making sure your organisation comes up based on a user's (search) query.

At the same time, there are big differences. SEO is all about search terms and link structures. The result of a search is a list of sites that match the query. GEO actually combines content from different sources into one ready-made answer.

So should you now completely ignore SEO and focus entirely on GEO? “No, GEO complements SEO. It’s not a replacement, but an addition,” explains Karlien Donders (CEO of Floyd & Hamilton) during their webinar on GEO.

"GEO is complementary to SEO. You don't do it instead of, but it comes with it." - Karlien Donders, CEO Floyd & Hamilton

SEO, GEO & content specialist Chantal Smink also sees a strong link between SEO and GEO: “I think you could say that what you do for SEO is the same as what you need to do for GEO. Mind you, this is ‘new-style’ SEO. If you still see SEO as keyword research, cramming in text and link building, then I don’t think you’re doing the right things. If you see SEO as creating good content on topics that matter to your customers and building an online footprint, then you’re on the right track for GEO.”

5 practical tips for getting found through AI

So the basics remain: find out the intention of your target audience and make sure you answer this in your content. To be well picked up by AI tools, focus on the technology of your site, the structure of your content, brand mentions, employee testimonials and multimedia content.

1. Technology: no JavaScript, but schema mark-up

Technically speaking, there are elements that LLMs (Large Language Models) handle well and others they find more challenging. A GEO experiment by Doublesmart shows that AI crawlers struggle with pages containing a lot of (complex) JavaScript. To ensure that AI tools understand your content properly, you should use as little of this as possible on your site.

What you do want is to structure your data. With schema mark-ups, search engines and AI understand much better what your content is about. An important one for recruitment is the schema jobPosting for vacancies, but for example the schemas Review and FAQ are also relevant for recruitment sites.

In short, pull the wool over your web builder's eyes and check whether your work-at-home site is technically ready for the AI revolution.

2. Content: know what your target audience is looking for and wants to know

Helpful content was already important, but for GEO it is the holy grail. Helpful content is made for the user - not stuffed with keywords, but focused on your target audience's questions. Think of questions like:

• What does a mechanic's working day look like at company X?
• What education do I need to work as a caregiver?
• What is an appropriate salary for an accountant?
• Which employers have sustainability and inclusiveness high on their agenda and have administrative vacancies right now?

Helpful content creation starts with finding out what engages your target audience, what information they are looking for and what triggers them. If you don't have this clear yet, ask them. To your own employees, to job applicants. They are a very valuable source of input to make your content ever more attuned to their needs.

Make sure you give complete and clear answers to your target audience's questions. Keep sub- and follow-up questions in mind and include them in your content as well. For example, if someone asks ChatGPT what an appropriate salary is for an accountant, the next question might be what other terms of employment are common in the market. And after that comes the question which accounting firms now have vacancies with these terms of employment. So think beyond the first question and target your content accordingly.

Finally, unique content - not found anywhere else - does remarkably well with AI tools. Think about publishing your own research, sharing content about your annual kick-off with the whole company or, for example, an extensive employee story.

3. Brand mentions instead of backlinks

With SEO, it was mainly about collecting as many backlinks as possible. For AI tools, this is much less important, but they do look at how often your brand is mentioned on external sites: brand mentions. This is because AI does not get the bulk of its answers from your own site, but from other sources, such as independent blogs, news sites, Wikipedia, Glassdoor and more.

Therefore, focus on brand mentions in your GEO strategy. Be active on forums, engage in PR, compete for titles such as Best Workplace and spread your vacancies across multiple channels.

4. Employees' opinions count (very heavily!)

Employee advocacy - using your employees as ambassadors - was always promising, but with the strong rise of AI, you can no longer do without it. AI relies heavily on what others say about you. AI sometimes even quotes verbatim statements from employees that they share on LinkedIn.

Reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed are also included above average. In short, encourage your colleagues to share online why they like working for you. This is a good move not only for GEO, by the way, but for your entire employer branding!

5. Not just text

Although LLMs use an awful lot of textual data, other forms of content also add value. For instance, AI indexes the alt text to your images and the titles, descriptions and transcripts of your videos. In addition, the latest AI models are capable of analysing audio and video. So what an employee says in a video testimonial or a podcast will soon also be indexable by AI and can determine what answer the tool gives.

Therefore, spread your helpful content in various forms: text, video, podcast, snippet. You name it! Important: structure your content well by adding the right titles and descriptions so that AI understands the content easily and quickly.

How do you measure GEO success?

The measurability of GEO is (still) in its infancy. You cannot see at the click of a button whether you are mentioned by AI, how often, on which question. Unfortunately!

You can test this yourself by entering questions you would like to be found on and keeping monthly records of whether you are mentioned, what information is used and which pages are referenced. This gives you instant insight into your content gaps - which questions from your target audience are you not yet answering (well)? Tip: Always test in incognito or without an account, otherwise you will get personalised results.

You can also track how much traffic you attract to your website via AI tools. See what sources your website visitors are coming from and draw your conclusions. Since this only measures click-throughs and not how often you are mentioned, it does not give a complete picture unfortunately. Hopefully, this will all become more measurable in the future.

Getting started with GEO as an employer

AI is playing an increasing role in job searches. Employers and agencies simply cannot be left behind. Time to draw up a GEO strategy and start working with it. So that the best candidates - now and in the future - end up with you for their next career move!