Last week Google for Jobs notified publishers that it is making preparations to standardize remote job openings across its platform.

Job boards (and applicant tracking systems) have typically done a poor job helping employers to properly categorize these job types but Google is now putting its stamp on the issue.

Here’s the message that came to me via the Google Search Console;

Google’s job search experience will soon launch the ability for providers to label remote jobs in Google Search. This allows job seekers to find a job directly in Google Search that they can perform from home.

If you’re a job data provider, you’ll need to add markup to your remote job postings so that they can be included in our results.

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.

This is the first bit of news affecting Google for Jobs in 2019. Hopefully they continue to tweak the service and continue its momentum. They even aired a commercial on the super bowl recently touting its jobs for veterans feature. Perhaps one day they will give it a full blown ad campaign to raise awareness among job seekers.

To learn more technical specs about the new remote tweak click here. To read more about Google for Jobs read my FAQ.