HOW TO CREATE A JOB AD THAT WORKS

May 25, 2016

According to Webrecruit (2014), 44% of small businesses find creating attractive job adverts to be their biggest HR challenge. This could be because of lack of in-house recruitment function, lack of time to sit down and carefully craft effective recruitment advertising copy, or they might lack the knowledge of what makes a great job ad.

INCLUDE DETAILED JOB TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS

The problem with some job ads is they never quite address what the job actually is. Vague and lacking, you attract candidates that don’t really fit the role because the job ad didn’t really say so. Try to outline what the job seeker will be doing on a day-to-day basis.

Tip: At Curran, Daly and Associates, we believe that choosing the right essential criteria is very important. If you have clear essential criteria listed in your ad, including transferable skills, people are then able to assess themselves as suitable or unsuitable. This means you’re able to bring in more of the right candidates.

EMPLOYER BRANDING

In previous posts, we’ve talked about the power of employer branding, and the same rings true for job ads. Giving your business a certain brand is essential for attracting the right talent to your company. Express what makes your workplace different to work for than other such as flexible work policies or a family-oriented culture where everyone feels a sense of inclusion

Tip: Share posts and photos in your social media, further sharing examples of your work culture and highlights what makes your business so great to work for.

STYLE GUIDE

Use one simple headline, and make it relevant and clear—usually this should be the job title itself, after all that will be what people are looking for.

Make the advert easy to read—use simple language, avoid complicated words unless necessary (e.g., recruiting for a very technical/niche type of position), and keep enough space around the text to attract attention to it.

Use language that your reader (potential candidate) uses. If you want clues as to what this might be, look at other successful job ads (or successful businesses/brands) and limit your vocabulary to that found on those sites.

Use bullet points and short bite-sized paragraphs. A lot of words in one big paragraph is very off-putting to any reader, and will probably not be read.

Don’t include over-designed graphics in your job ad – this just distracts and slows down reading.

JOB AD CHECKLIST

There are a number of examples of great ads online, but with so many varying just make sure you include the previous ideas in your mind when writing your ad, and ensure you include the basics as below:

  • Job title
  • Employer or recruitment agency/consultancy
  • Job base location
  • Job description and aims; outline of the job role and purpose
  • To whom the position report or other indication of where the role is in the structure
  • Response and application instructions
  • Contact details as necessary, e.g., address, phone, e-mail, etc.

By: Curran Daly + Associates

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