USAJobs links up with major search engines

Job seekers are now able to access information about federal job openings via major Internet search engines as a result of an Office of Personnel Management initiative. Users of search engines such as Google can use the data feed from USAJobs, the government’s central jobs portal, to get information that was previously available only through a keyword search on the USAJobs Web site. For instance, a job seeker who enters a title such as “information technology specialist” in the search field on Google will now see links to federal vacancy announcements from USAJobs in the search results. The enhanced access became effective Dec. 1, OPM said. The initiative goes far to raise the visibility of federal job postings, OPM officials said.“By doing this, we’re making information about tens of thousands of federal job openings posted at any given moment on USAJobs as broadly accessible as possible on the Web,” OPM Director Linda Springer said. “The result is we’re reaching an ever-wider and more diverse universe of qualified prospects for federal employment.” About 60,000 federal job openings are listed on USAJobs, which averages more than 10 million visitors each month, OPM said.