The next time you're recruiting new staff, take a moment to put yourself in the jobseeker's shoes. This one simple recruitment consultant's trick, looking at your job advert through the eyes of your perfect applicant, will increase the quantity and quality of your applications.
It's a simple change in philosophy that, if you implement it correctly, will help you neatly sidestep the two cardinal sins of job advert placement:
- Failing to consider the audience
- Simply replicating the job specification as the advert.
This is marketing and you should approach it with the same rigorous approach you'll take on your next ad campaign, treating your next big recruit as the customer. So take a moment before you start to paint a picture of your perfect candidate. This one little secret will help your pitch no end.
Then it's time to consider the basic habits of the jobseeker. Don't overthink it, the basics are quite simple.
The average jobseeker:
Inputs the job title, location and their dream salary into the search bar.
Scans the list of jobs, looking only at the summaries.
Opens the jobs that appeal from the basic information.
Applies to jobs that match their skillset and salary expectations.
Once you truly appreciate this simple system, writing the job advert itself is a natural process that you'll find much easier. Just break it down and deal with it piece by piece.
Job Title
What would your ideal candidate search for? Research the job on LinkedIn and Google's Keyword Planner. Don't get clever, let them find you.
Salary
What's the right salary for the job, the level of experience you're requesting and remember that your location has a huge impact on the amount you have to offer. If you want the best applicants, don't skimp on the salary. Research job boards as salaries for specific jobs can change and if your salaries slip below market rate, your ROI on your advertising will suffer.
Location
Even if you're located in a small village, don't say that in the advert. Go for the nearest town or city unless you're absolutely in the middle of nowhere, it will help your candidates find you and your response rate will soar. A lot of ads feature commutable areas, too, which lists the nearest towns and helps the search engines pick up the advert.
Job Advert Content
This is where many job adverts go wrong. Think about the jobseeker. They want to know that the job pays well, that they can do it and, crucially, that they want to. Keep it to the highlights, the key requirements that you absolutely need and define the role.
Recognise, too, that the average jobseeker can scan hundreds of adverts at a single sitting, so don't overload your advert with pointless information and white noise. Do you really need to specify IT skills anymore when virtually every jobseeker in the corporate environment can operate a computer? If you need Photoshop skills then, of course, ask for them, but general IT knowledge is a given these days, so leave it out.
Keep the advert short and punchy. Use a list to break up the information and make it easier to digest and make it easy to apply with a clickable link, a button or a straightforward email address.
AB Testing
This is a grand marketing term, but don't be afraid. It simply means change individual parts of the advert like the font, the call-to-action, the location and the salary and analyse the difference it makes to your response rate. Ensure you adopt an analytical approach and you'll find that AB Testing helps you make massive strides in your advertising plan.
If you do all this right, then it's the time to read it back and apply that mystical quality: common sense.
Review
Read the advert back, again through the eyes of the jobseeker. Would you apply for it yourself if you were in the market for this kind of job? Look again, look at the 'competition' and see how your job stacks up. If it's not the best there, you might want to make changes.
