WebProNews

A new system for ranking listing on Yahoo HotJobs debuted with the promise of better relevance and service for job seekers, recruiters, and the members of Yahoo's consortium of newspaper publishers.

Success in the job listings business means finding candidates that suit the recruiter's requirements. Yahoo touted a new initiative today to enhance that pool of desirable job seekers through its HotJobs service.

Yahoo calls its new search ranking system R.E.A.L. They already consider it a success, noting in a statement how "applies" per listing have already increased by 25 percent, thanks to the new algorithm.

R.E.A.L. stands for the following:

R - Relevance: Matching text in job titles and descriptions to the keywords candidates use

E - Engagement: Measuring how well candidates respond to the job listing

A - Availability: Determining that the positions displayed are still unfilled

L - Location: Showing jobs in a location of interest to the candidate

The arrival of R.E.A.L. should improve classifieds in the important local job search market for members of Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium. Those sites use HotJobs, reaching 30 percent of daily US newspapers.

Yahoo said R.E.A.L. includes location-based job searching features which enhance the ability to narrow or broaden relevant job search results by zip code, city, nearby cities, full metro areas, or entire states. They also laid claim to fastest growing job board site, passing Monster.com per rankings from metrics firm comScore.