Does SEO Open the Flood Gates to Receiving Unqualified Resumes?

This past Thursday I gave my first-ever webinar through Kennedy Information. I have to say, it was a blast and I can only hope it was valuable to those attending. There were some really great questions asked duing the interactive Q&A session, one in particuliar that peaked my interest.

I thought it might be beneficial to share the question along with my answer (an expanded version of it anyway) here.

The Question

An ATS provider had told them not to engage in SEO as it would open the flood gates to tons of unqualified resumes. The question asked was basically whether or not this was a truthful statement.

Before I share my thoughts on this, I have to tell you first that SEO is my absolute passion in life (A bigger dork, I could not be) I have dedicated the last 7 years to studying and working full-time in the industry. That said, it erks (is that a word?) me when people who may not entirely understand the field give out inaccurate information.

My first reaction was that they are more than likely unable to provide SEO therefore wanted to devalue the importance of it using the scare tactic of “tons of unqualified resumes” Nice - keep thinking about yourself and not what's in the best interest of the industry as a whole.

The Truth - As I see It (other opinions welcome)

You will never be able to completely eliminate unqualified candidates from applying to your jobs, it doesn’t matter what channel you're using to attract them.

SEO is about leveraging a new candidate traffic opportunity. There are millions of searches being conducted by candidate’s everyday on search engines, applying SEO best practices to your career site and job content will help you get the attention of these people. Will you receive some unqualified applicants? Of course, at the end of the day SEO is just a form of marketing not magic.

With SEO you choose what words and phrases you want to be found most relevant for. If you're hiring specifically for an experienced .net developer that must be a US citizen that’s what you optimize the job description for. Will non US citizens that are only entry level still apply? You bet.

Keyword Research & Job Description Copy is KEY

If you’re receiving more unqualified applicants than normal, the first thing I would do is evaluate whether or not your job descriptions are written in a way that attracts the RIGHT candidate as well as look at what words and phrases you’re targeting in your optimization efforts.

The more specific you can be with your optimization efforts, the better qualified candidate you are bound to attract.

Thoughts?