Writing an Effective / Compelling Online Help Wanted Ad
The most common mistake that Employers make when posting a job ad online is forgetting the medium. A big advantage of online job boards is that they allow unlimited ad text in most cases. In other words, you’ll pay the same $475 on Monster.com for a 200 word ad as you would for a 2000 word ad. That is not to say that you need to go hog wild on content because it’s free (after all you want the job seeker to actually read what you have posted). It is to say, however, that there are some key points to include to make the ad work…and work well.
- Grab the job seekers attention. If you have a headline / slogan you can use, put it at the top of the listing…especially if it is relevant to the position.
- Give a little history. Summarize what it is your company does and what make is unique.
- Give enough details about the position to make it clear what the candidate will be doing.
- Keep ‘requirements’ brief…only listing the most important qualifications. Also, remember your audience…if you are hiring a Sales Manager with 12+ years’ industry experience, it’s safe to assume that they have computer skills….no need to list that in the ad.
- Outline what makes this position / company special. What are you going to offer the employee in terms of compensation or benefits? What is the culture / environment of this company? What’s in it for them?
- Make sure that your ad is ‘keyword rich’. Most job board search engines will search content, as well as titles / job categories. The more relevant keywords that your ad contains means better positioning in candidate search results.
- Make it easy to apply. If you want the candidate to apply directly into your applicant tracking system, have a direct link into your ATS system (As opposed to having them go to you site to find the career page).
In order for an ad to be effective, you need to do more than copy and paste a posting from your internal site. It does take a little effort to do it properly, but the results are well worth it.
4 comments:
Hi Thomas,
As someone that works in a niche job board, I just want to say "thank you".
We deal everyday with recruiters asking why their job posting didn't have enough responses and the truth is that in some cases, the posting was no different from another 100 postings (and what is worst sometimes from the same company) that are published at the same time.
Job postings are ads. And as with any ad (my background is in advertising) I believe that it is a waste of money to publish ads that are not compelling or that do not drove any attention to them.
Also, we normally ask recruiters that if they are sending the candidate to their own form, to send them to that job directly. Ninety nine percent of the time that is NOT what they do and when our support people do have the time, we change the URL to take candidates directly to the job, out of respect for the candidate. But that should not be the task of our support team, should come like that directly from the source.
Of course, as in everything, there are exceptions and you find from time to time recruiters really interested in learning what they can do to get more responses. But those are still a small group.
So, again, thank you for pointing out these things..., they are the kind of tips that we normally give to recruiters too, but it seems that they can't be stressed enough considering the enormous amount of ads out there that are just more of the same.
PS: My native language is not English so feel free to edit if there are some grammar mistakes. :)
Do you target the ad for a particular site? I'm curious if copy that works well on a "hip" urban site is going to be as effective on a profesion specific site. Do you do one ad and just blanket it?
I agree with everything you have said Thomas. I work for a large staffing company.
1 of my biggest challenges is getting the message of clear and concise copy writing for vacancy adverts. The excuse that is always given to me from consultants is 'not enough time'...which is a poor excuse, but understandable in a busy office.
Hey Thomas,
great post on the science of writing copy in ads. Like everything most people totally misunderstand what sells a message in text and ads for positions are no different.
Rich
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