12 Tips for More Effective Indeed Job Titles

The below tips are geared primarily toward Indeed since it is the #1 job site in the world, but they can also be helpful for other sites that list your open positions.

Although Indeed does have a page mentioning job titles, they do not offer any real details. The list at the bottom of the page may provide some helpful terminology for you to use in your job titles and possibly increase the chance of your listing showing up in job search results. However, the list is not all-inclusive and you may not find one appropriate to your opening or needs.

The following guidelines are ones you should consider in writing job titles for Indeed and possibly other sites. Additionally, I have included a couple items to avoid violating Indeed’s guidelines, which could result in your position or positions being delisted on their site.

1. First and foremost, make sure everything is spelled correctly. If a job title is misspelled, it may not come up in job seeker searches.
2. If possible, try to keep the number of characters (including spaces) for the job title to 35 and under. If you need a longer job title, that’s fine but it should still be under 60 characters. Indeed allows more, but the more characters you use, the less information is visible in search results, especially in mobile searches.
   • Tip #1: You can use “&” instead of “and” if your job title is getting long.
   • Tip #2: It is acceptable to use “Sr.” or “Sr” as a substitute for “Senior” to keep the number of characters down.
3. Keep a job title to the basics, like “Customer Service Representative” or “Cardiac Sonographer.” If the position is one where a discipline is important, include that as well, e.g., “Registered Nurse, Medical/Surgical.” Nursing positions (and others like them) can cover a wide range of speciaties so this may be necessary.
4. Make sure any terms in the job title are terms the job seeker would use as a search term or would get the results you aim for. For example, while “ASU” may have meaning to the job poster, 1. It’s likely to bring in job types totally unrelated to yours and 2. It is not a search term most job seekers would use.
5. Avoid using abbreviations except for the common industry-recognized abbreviations. A job seeker may use the search term “RN” but is much less likely to search using “Mgr.”
6. You may also use the abbreviation in addition to the full term (e.g., Registered Nurse, RN), provided it does not make the job title too long. However, in many cases like this RN example, you shouldn’t need to include it with “Registered Nurse.” The algorithm likely knows to incorporate “RN” in the job seeker’s search and/or that term may be used in the job description.
7. No locations (e.g., Wilmington, DE) should be in the job title. This information is obtained and used elsewhere by Indeed and only adds unnecessary length to your job title.
8. You should avoid including schedule information like “Full Time,” “Part Time,” “PRN” and “Per Diem” in the job title field. Indeed has a separate field for the schedule and should be obtaining the required information from the jobs feed or scrape of your site. On a practical level, job seekers are also less likely to click on a job that is listed as “Per Diem” or “PRN.”
9. Indeed frowns upon detailed shift information (e.g., 9am-5pm) in the job title field. Indeed prefers that this information is listed in the job description field.
10. Typically, Indeed does not allow you to put sign-on and retention bonuses in the job title field unless you sponsor the listing. Please consult with your account manager and possibly also your Indeed representative to clarify the policy.
11. Similar to the previous item, Indeed generally does not allow you to include “remote” in the job title field. That designation should be mentioned in the job description and possibly in the location field in your ATS, if applicable. According to Indeed, their system should automatically assign a remote designation if these steps are followed. If that is not happening or you have questions about the procedure, please contact your account manager and/or Indeed representative.
12. Remember that your job titles are not set in stone. If you are not receiving the number or types of candidates you seek, you can revise and update your job title field for the job aggregators.

At its most basic, your job title should be short, simple and concise. You won’t be able to do that in every situation, especially for jobs that need to specify a discipline, but keeping that in mind should prevent you from writing overly long and thus ineffective job titles.

Download a handy PDF cheat sheet: