Do we need an industry standard for Remote Job Types?

As more companies list work from home or remote listings, the current generally accepted XML schema for handling this jobs not been standardized. Though a few companies are trying.

A reader wrote in to me to ask;

What are job boards doing today to ensure that when they’re distributing jobs to publishers, that the publisher knows the job is remote (rather than scanning the job title or description to guess)?

Given that most job boards allow (or even require) search by keyword, job title, AND GEO, how do publishers handle the display of jobs where geo isn’t important to ensure that candidates all across the US can see and apply to those jobs? 

Should the job board industry further clarify XML or API specs for remote work and start adopting this in our industry?

One of the biggest issues around remote is that ATS vendors haven’t yet properly adjusted their fields to allow for remote job listings.

Google has. A few years back they announced how they would be handling them by saying;

In order for a job posting to be considered remote:

• The job posting must be for a fully remote position and have the jobLocationTypefield set to ‘TELECOMMUTE’. Jobs that allow partial work-from-home or have other negotiable arrangements are not considered fully remote.
• We recommend that you specify a minimum of one country from which applicants are eligible to work with applicantLocationRequirements. Additional applicant location eligibility criteria (such as qualifying states) can be specified as well. If you don’t provide applicantLocationRequirements, Google assumes that the job is available to everyone in the same country as the jobLocation value.

When I ran Jobmote, a remote job board, I simply removed the location field from the home page search box. There was just no need for it when ALL the listings are remote.

For the displaying of remote jobs I think they should be included in search results as long as the keyword matches the user query. These jobs should be indicated with some form of remote call out icon. (remote should be a filter as well)

When it comes to job board software I like how Smart Job Board handles it. They allow you to specify a location OR indicate it is a remote listing.

The way SJB handles it you can indicate it as remote and also indicate a location if that job has a home base.

I believe SJB follows the Google guidelines when it comes to classifying remote jobs. Suggest we all do the same.

One of my readers from the UK, Brian suggested an alternative way to handle it. He writes…

Agreed most if not all job boards are behind the curve on defining data for remote jobs. The most overlooked aspect is the “applicant location requirement”. Smart Job Board for example has nothing on this. A better implementation idea is that used by Stack Overflow where the hirer can specify a time zone +/- of the candidate as permissible locations.

There also isn’t a full understanding that there are “degrees of remoteness” in a job, eg fully remote, remote with occasional office/base attendance required. Remote 2/3 days a week etc, with a way of reflecting this in the job data definition – all too often advertisers have to add their own text to make the point, often inconsistently and invisibly to job searches.

The Job Board industry really needs more data oriented people!