If you’re an employer looking for new staff members – you’re in for a wild ride. The talent pool seems to be getting shallower by the day and the best people are already working for someone else. In order to attack the problem head-on, take a look at the first point of contact the applicants have with your company – your job ad.
Finding the perfect candidate for an open position in your company is often like winning the lottery. If you want to convince someone to work for you, you must make them a compelling proposition from the get-go. Too many job offers are too boring and uninspired to attract potential candidates.
In this post, we’ll discuss how to make your job advertisement informative, inclusive, interesting, and exciting. That way you can be sure to attract qualified applicants.
- How Job Ads Affect the Recruitment Process
- 7 Tips for Creating a Job Ad to Attract Top Talent
- Video: Writing the Perfect Job Descriptions
- Do You Have the Tools to Attract Top Talent?
- Software with hiring tools ✅
Great Job Ads Optimize Recruitment
You have a company or work in the Human Resources department and you must hire people. You know what you’ll have to do now: review hundreds of resumes and conduct dozens of interviews.
And all this in order to be able to replace dear John Smith, who had been with you for 10 years and was so competent, so professional and so familiar with the company that he even knew where dust bunnies accumulated most frequently in the kitchen floor. How can you replace this irreplaceable talent?
In a recent survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), more than two-thirds of hiring organizations indicated that they’re having a difficult time recruiting for job openings.
When it comes to taking the next step in their professional lives, you can bet on potential candidates are being careful with where they take the time to apply. This makes writing effective job postings more important than ever
Nowadays, you can’t simply list job duties and prerequisites and call it a day. You’re going to have to sell your company in order to attract the best talent. That means strong messaging that lays out your business’s culture and mission and sets out clear expectations. It is not going to be an easy task; you know that attracting great professionals to work in your company will not be easy. How do you find great talent?
7 Tips: How to Write a Great Job Ad
Top talent can only be attracted to a top job ad. If your ad looks and reads like everything else out there, don’t be surprised if the candidates you attract are average as well. Most of these problems can be solved at the beginning of the hiring process though, by making an appealing job ad. Here are 7 tips to actually help you do it:
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Start with an inclusive job title.
Getting the job title right is crucial. This is the first thing job searchers see and so it’s important to make sure it makes an impact. In this sense, the type of language used is key. Using words such as “guru”, “expert” or “ninja” can put off potential applicants, particularly women and minorities who may have less confidence while being equally competent.
The level of position implied by the job title can be particularly attractive to prospective employees. Be clear about whether the role is whether the position level is junior, middle, or senior.
Job titles are also important as they can show internal candidates possible career paths within the company. For employees hoping to grow into and take on new roles, it is very useful to understand the possible roles they are working toward.
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Connect roles and responsibilities to the bigger picture.
What makes your company so exciting to work for? Why do your employees want to come to work every day? What do they look forward to? As you answer these questions, you’re beginning to build your employer brand and making your company a more attractive place to work.
Nowadays, many people are looking to work for a company that has particular corporate social responsibility aims. Make sure to inform the potential applicant how their role will contribute not only to their team, but the company and society at large. This will help them to feel like they would be part of a community when working for the business.
Try to use the active voice rather than passive and use personal language, such as “you” and “we”. This will put the candidate in the shoes of this role and make them feel like they are already a part of the company.
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Define your mission.
Your company culture, your mission, your vision, should attract the employees who will fit in. Your company’s core mission, vision, and values are fundamental to your company culture. When you feel confident that you know and understand what sets your company apart, you can entice job candidates by sharing the secret ingredients of your company through the posting.
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Exhibit the potential for growth in the career path
Prospective employees want more than just a good work environment. They’re also seeking opportunities and benefits that are better than what they’re receiving in their current role and will help them to achieve growth in their career.
If you’re a smaller company, you may think you can’t compete with big company opportunities. However, if you show candidates how much can they grow in your company, even in entry-level positions, you may still be able to attract great talent. Employees may be excited to work at a smaller company where they can take on more responsibilities and grow with the company.
Larger companies will want to focus more on the structure and support they can provide throughout an employee’s career. 
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Inspire with the job position.
Make sure your job description takes a positive tone! Show why employees are excited to work at your company and make sure to include opportunities for learning, training, and support. Help prospective employees see how their personal growth will contribute directly to the success of the business.
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Provide an honest description of the job vacancy.
Studies show that turnover goes up when job descriptions do not accurately reflect the true responsibilities of an available role.
Sincerity and clarity must be essential values when describing the job that is being offered. In order to create the most accurate job ad possible, make sure to talk with employees who have worked with a person in this role, or the previous holder of the position. They can offer insight into what skills were most important to the role so that you can plan accordingly.
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Make a realistic description of qualities.
Try to keep your expectations reasonable. If you ask impossible characteristics, you may end up scaring away highly qualified candidates.
Include relevant qualifications and characteristics but avoid alienating people with non-traditional experience. These candidates can end up bringing the most value to your company.
Remember, qualifications can encompass both education and skills. Identify the number of years required and the type of work experience that an employee needs to be qualified for the job, but stay open to other pathways.
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Be (a little) sneaky.
We all value attention to detail. Want to sift for qualified candidates who are excited about your role and committed to learning all they can about it before they apply?
The truth is, a lot of applicants are going through job boards and applying to all jobs without looking at the ads in detail. In order to combat this, you can write a very simple instruction somewhere in the middle of the job ad. For example, some job ad instructs candidates to write a specific subject line of the email as they apply.
In more automated platforms, you can add a questionnaire or something similar to make sure you can filter out some people.
Video: Writing the perfect job ad
Make Sure You Have the Tools to Recruit Talent
If this seems like a lot of information to take in, remember that there some tools you can use to streamline this difficult process. Factorial offers an applicant tracking system that helps with the entire recruitment process.
It has functionalities that can create custom job offers, application forms, and pipeline steps. Moreover, it allows employers to post job advertisements on different job websites and platforms. Ultimately, this recruitment software helps HR managers manage this tricky and time-consuming process. It saves HR managers valuable time and resources.
Writing job descriptions can be time-consuming, but it is crucial to attracting top talent for any company. With HCM software, all you need to do is write a great job description and then Factorial will take care of the rest.
Recruiting Managers: Leverage Your Ads to Improve the Hiring Process
In today’s competitive market, it’s more important than ever to optimize your recruiting processes to hire the best quality candidates. While recruiting managers have many responsibilities, it is vital that they start by making sure their job ad really stands out from the crowd – this will help you attract more quality candidates.
Even if you are offering an exciting opportunity, if you can’t sell it to applicants, you won’t be able to find candidates.
Today, there are many ways to reach people interested in finding work. Job portals, search engines, advertisements… Evaluate the different options you have to reach them and use the ones you consider most appropriate, without forgetting to inform yourself beforehand about what are the most common means of finding work in your sector. Now let’s give a makeover to that dusty old job posting.
