What are you doing to stand out in a sea of black and white, Times New Roman job ads?
Ten days. On average, top candidates are only “on the market” for ten days. It’s more critical than ever to stand out and attract people early in their job search. Your job ad is your first chance to paint a clear picture about an opportunity with your organization. Make a great impression and engage job seekers by getting creative and telling a story.
Here are 5 easy tips to make your job ads more human and engage job seekers:
1. Speak Human To Me
When is the last time a job seeker told you that they felt like your job ad was speaking to them? This should be your goal – every single time. Great job ads tap into job seekers’ emotions, demonstrating a clear connection between their motivations and what your organization can offer. Make sure to talk about the candidate more than you talk about yourself. Avoid corporate speak and jargon. Instead, use the same language you would use in a conversation. Test yourself by reading sentences out loud. Ask yourself if that is how you would talk to a candidate face to face. Let your personality shine through! Our Candidate Persona Tool can help you determine your target audience.
2. Step Away From the Skills Laundry List
It’s important to focus more on the who than the what. Place more emphasis on hiring people who align with your goals, culture and values than people who tick boxes on a list of specific skills and experience. The right person can learn skills and be taught how to complete tasks. You cannot teach personality, motivation, or force value alignment. When you’re writing a job ad, avoid long lists of tasks, focusing instead of key areas of accountability that highlights outcomes and deliverables. This helps to get job seekers excited about the impact they will create through the role!
3. Formatting Functions Exist For A Reason
There’s nothing worse than fighting your way through a massive block of text or trying to interpret information filled with grammatical errors. To enhance readability, make use of
-
-
- Lists
-
Headings
- Bolding
- Italicizing.
-
Appropriate spacing and the overall aesthetic of a job ad are vital to communicating information and generating excitement with job seekers! If your post is hard to read in an endless database of job postings at candidates’ fingertips, it will be quickly overlooked.
4. Picture This
Have a great shot of your last staff outing? A picture of an event your company has sponsored? Images help to show job seekers what it’s like to work with you rather than just telling them. Images with a simple “We’re Hiring” text overlay are a great way to stand out in a LinkedIn feed when you share job ads socially. Don’t have any fancy graphics or real image? Start by including your company logo to break up the boring text and be more memorable for potential candidates (and then contact us to help you make things jazzy!).
5. Honesty Is Always the Best Policy
No workplace is perfect. Be candid in your job ads and paint an authentic picture of your organization – the good, the bad and the ugly. We recently started including a very candid “What it’s really like to work with us” section in our job ads that paints a vivid picture of our reality. If a candidate is not interested in the reality of your environment, it’s better to have them self select out of the hiring process. This helps to optimize your time in recruitment, manage candidate expectations, and minimize turnover. If candidates aren’t the right fit, it’s better to know sooner than later.
Inspired to improve your job ads and engage job seekers? We can help! Download our Job Advertisement Tool today to get started!
Our Job Advertisement Tool provides you with guidelines, tips, and tricks to create an enticing job advertisement. With the right roadmap, you will be on your way to attracting top talent!
[cv_button text=”Download Now!” url=”http://envolstrategies.com/create-effective-job-ads/” size=”medium” style=”filled” color=”custom” custom_color=”#7f141b” icon_position=”none” icon=”mail-1″]