If you, like many others, have not looked for work lately, you have probably not taken a great deal of notice of the level of quality of the ‘positions vacant’ advertisements. As someone who scans each position vacant in both print and online media, I can reliably assure you that the following are common features:
- No clue who the company is or what they do
- Very few ‘selling points’ about the company – detailing why someone would want to work there over anywhere else
- Minimal information about what’s involved in the role
- No way of knowing who to contact if you have questions
So why does it all matter? It’s simple – if the role and the company do not sound appealing or interesting your perfect candidate may not apply. Making your advertisement, clear, easy to read and informative will ensure that not only do you have the great candidates interested in applying, but it also helps to ‘weed out’ those who are not suitable and don’t have the skills and experience you are looking for. So how do you attract your ideal candidate? Here are my top 5 tips to writing great ads which attract the candidates you want!
- Tell them who you are and what you do. This will either get them interested or not but you don’t want people working for you who are not in any way interested in what you do anyway.
- Explain what the role is and what’s involved. This doesn’t mean the entire job description but some brief details about the day to day responsibilities will again ensure that only applicants who are interested in these tasks will apply.
- What are you looking for in a candidate?Be careful here, for those not familiar with anti-discrimination laws here are the basics:
- you can not recruit based on age, sex, race, religious affiliation etc
- you can not ask for personal information – e.g. ‘no smokers’
- you can not discriminate based on personal/family circumstances – e.g. ‘no family responsibilities please’
- only include requirements which are relevant to the role But here is what you can list:
- any qualifications needed, such as a degree, drivers licence, forklift licence, first aid certificate etc
- the skills required for the role, such as computer skills, typing skills etc
- the level of experience you are seeking
- any other skills/abilities that are specifically relevant to the position e.g. experience in dealing with customers, experience in supervising staff, experience with BAS preparation etc
- Tell them who you are, how to contact you and how to apply! This may be phone numbers, email addresses or a fax number. Be specific. If you want all applications emailed then instruct interested applicants to do so, if you would like cover letters then note that in the advertisement.
- Finally, but most importantly, make it interesting, make it different, and make it stand out! When you are placing ads via online job boards you are competing with thousands of other ads – to grab the best applicants attention you need to talk their language, engage their interest and stand out from the crowd. Make sure your headline is catchy, your short description grabs their attention and your ad keeps them engaged until they get to your call to action/how to apply.
