There’s a plethora of data available to you within public sector when looking at labour market information, but one piece of the puzzle that’s missing in all of this, is what job seekers are actually searching for on Google. (Sure you can find that within your skills portal, but the data will be limited due to GDPR and whether browsers accept cookies or not!)
It’s said that we live our best lives on Instagram (or any other social media channel) but our real lives on Google.. meaning that we ask Google things that we wouldn’t even ask our closest friends or family!!
So, how do we discover what people are searching for related to job seeking in Google?
We use digital marketing research tools!
We can discover changes in trends in real time which can give us a lot of insight into what people want.
For example, since many people are returning to the workplace after an extended period of working from home due to the pandemic, the number of searches for ‘work from home jobs’ has increased from 10,000 – 100,000 per month as an average over the last 12 month in the UK to 100,000 – 1 million in August.
We can also determine where there’s the most interest in sectors, for example, in the month of August 2021, the top searches in the UK were:
- NHS jobs – 100K – 1M
- Work from home jobs – 100K – 1M
- Part time jobs near me – 100K – 1M
- Civil service jobs – 100K- 1M
- Tesco jobs – 100K – 1M
- Tesco careers – 100K – 1M
- Job Centre – 100K – 1M
- Amazon Jobs – 10K – 100K
- Government Jobs – 10K – 100K
- Amazon careers – 10K – 100K
- Linkedin jobs – 10K – 100K
- Google jobs – 10K – 100K
- Remote jobs – 10K – 100K
- Data analyst jobs – 10K – 100K
- Warehouse jobs near me – 10K – 100K
- Royal Mail jobs – 10K – 100K
- Aldi jobs – 10K – 100K
- Find a job – 10K – 100K
- Asda Jobs – 10K – 100K
- Morrison jobs – 10K – 100K
- Lidl jobs – 10K – 100K
- Highest paying jobs – 10K – 100K
- Full time jobs near me – 10K – 100K
- Warehouse jobs – 10K – 100K
- Receptionist jobs near me – 10K – 100K
- Guardian jobs – 10K – 100K
- National careers service – 10K – 100K
Were there any surprises there?
Can you see how we can spot trends and get a snapshot of how job seekers are feeling and what they are looking for, and consider why, using the information above?
This can help you identify what content you may need to share on your skills portal, and determine employers that you might want to engage with for jobs/careers fairs that you’re running.
All of the data above is based on UK, but it can be broken down into regions (by county) to identify local trends.
For example, in Essex, the top 5 job searches by volume are:
- NHS Jobs – 10K – 100K
- Jobs Indeed – 10K – 100K
- Amazon Jobs – 1K – 10K
- Work from home jobs – 1K – 10K
- Part – time jobs near me – 1K – 10K
We can also use trends to get a very quick snapshot about the level of interest in job seeking. This comes from Google trends, and is based over the last 12 months:

We can also determine what the rising trends are in job searches on Google – based on the last 12 months

Look how it changes after the last 3 months:

And then over the last month:

And finally over the last week:

OK, the top one isn’t relevant as it relates to the parents of Emma Raducanu who has just won the US Open, but maybe people are looking for inspiration!?
How will you use the data above?
Interested in finding out more?
A 15 minute conversation with us to discuss your goals and how digital marketing will help you to achieve those output goals costs you nothing!
Simply call our friendly team on 01245 791969 or drop us an email to [email protected] to arrange a confidential chat.
The Social Accelerators, founded by Caroline Thomas in 2010 advises clients around the UK on strategic marketing of your public sector funded programme, project or portal.
Her firm designs and runs digital marketing campaigns, conducts online research and designs online client journeys that get the results you need across social media, websites and email campaigns.