Crafting Job Advertisements That Convert Qualified Applicants

I’ve written many job ads over the years. When I worked at job boards, clients were often more than happy to leave composing the ad up to me. I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned about creating job postings that turn candidates into applicants.

A Better Approach to Job Postings

Find the Right Length

Early job postings grew out of the print classified ad model when people usually paid by the word or line and used abbreviations to save a bit. Now the rules have changed. Flesh that thing out! Take the time to write complete sentences instead of sentence fragments and word abbreviations. People rarely search for abbreviations; they make your posting much more difficult to find.

On the other end of the spectrum, today’s job descriptions tend to be a lot longer and include every duty the employee will have but lack the language to entice and interest them in joining your company. Engage the jobseeker by attracting them to the position, rather than just listing off requirements. Always emphasize what’s in it for them.

Include Your Employee Value Proposition

Without an employee value proposition, it’s much more challenging to attract and hire qualified candidates and integrate them into your organization. So, what’s an employee value proposition?

I like to look at it this way. I had an old client at a job board who wanted to know why she wasn’t getting more applicants for a minimum-wage cashier job in New Jersey. I challenged her to explain how this job differed from the thousands of similar jobs around her. She got permission to pay out quarterly bonuses, provide a discounted meal while working and relax the dress code so employees could wear jeans to work. When we added those small differentiators, she got more applications from people who were a good fit for the organization.

Consider Employer Branding

A large majority of Gen Z prioritizes finding work that aligns with their personal values and contributes to a greater good. This isn’t exactly groundbreaking information. Most of us, regardless of age, are drawn to that type of work. I use communication and persuasion to better understand what people need to improve their talent acquisition models to position them for success. But overall, I help people get jobs and help organizations hire people. It’s a mission I feel good about.

Employer branding on your career site and in your job ads can demonstrate why qualified candidates should apply for roles at your organization. Pictures, videos or testimonials from current employees are valuable to let people know what makes others happy working for your organization. Branding can both attract the people you want and deter those not qualified from applying.

You can immediately improve your response by adding information about your company. Why do people like working there? Check Indeed and Glassdoor for positive employee comments to augment data from your own employees.

The Basics of Writing an Effective Job Posting

Use the Right Job Title

Use the job title that someone is most likely to search for. When I’m looking for sales roles, I tend to search for the term Sales Manager even though I’m willing to consider many other titles. If you advertise that you’re looking for a ‘Rock Star’ or a ‘Sales Ninja’, your posting won’t be searchable.

Edit Mercilessly

Most job descriptions are surprisingly long. Sometimes, I see the exact same requirements worded in multiple ways. You only need to list each requirement once. Consider removing requirements for soft skills. Most people don’t have the self-awareness to realize whether they have good communication skills or are team players. There are many other ways to determine this, such as asking specific questions about these issues in an interview and asking the applicant to provide examples of how they have used their communication skills.

Remove Biased Language

Avoid using language that can be coded as male or female or appear to target only one gender. For example, many sales ads call for aggression, hunting, battle, killing, etc. These words read as masculine. Sales is helping people solve business problems and should be open to everyone.

Long before AI, Kat Mansfield built a Gender Decoder to use on job ads. A research paper written by Danielle Gaucher, Justin Friesen and Aaron C. Kay back in 2011 (Evidence That Gendered Wording in Job Advertisements Exists and Sustains Gender Inequality, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, July 2011, Vol 101(1), p109-28) inspired Kat to build this tool. The gender decoder tool will help you find and remove subtle bias in job ads.

Content to Include in Your Job Postings

Onsite/Hybrid/Work from Home

A big question is whether your job is on premises, work-from-home or hybrid. This is an important one to get right. If you can only consider people working in a market where you have an office and expect them to come in periodically, the job is hybrid.

Flexibility and Balance

People want to know what flexibility the job offers. I may want to have lunch away from my desk and occasionally exercise during the day. Parents might want to leave at a specific time for kid pickup. Someone might want the flexibility to go home at lunch to let their dog out. Whatever your company offers, transparency prevents misunderstandings about expectations.

Salary Transparency

In more than 90 percent of occupations, women earn less than men. These figures highlight the urgent need for measures that address gender pay inequality and promote wage transparency. As Forbes explains, several states have welcomed the concept of pay transparency, enacting laws to ensure employees and job applicants can access salary information. Colorado led the way in May 2019, followed by Maryland, Connecticut, Nevada, Rhode Island, Washington, California and New York. Local measures include Jersey City, New Jersey; New York City, New York; Ithaca, New York; Westchester County, New York; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Toledo, Ohio.

Whether you are mandated or not, posting reasonable salary ranges saves time. Both you and the applicant are starting on the same page. Negotiations will still be a part of the hiring process, but you’ll both begin knowing what the budget allows.

Getting More Eyes on Your Job Postings

Use the Right Media Strategies

Posting your job opportunity on your company career site or a major job board is often not enough to fill roles where there is intense competition for top talent. If there are few qualified candidates available for your open role, you must position your company as an employer of choice and get your message in front of those candidates.

Where are these candidates? They are on search engines like Google and social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook or TikTok, and they read industry journals and other media. They’re doing what interests them.

Use tools like SEO (Search Engine Optimization), branding and social media to get your opportunity in front of top talent. Social media is more critical today than ever; 79% of job seekers use social media in their job search. Candidates want to research your company online, and having a strong social media presence allows you to project your message about working for you.

Simplify the Application Process

Have you taken yourself through your own company’s application process lately? Do you have an application that people must fill out before they can apply? Does it ask irrelevant questions like the applicant’s current salary before letting them drop off a resume?

Some talent acquisition professionals think that their long application screens out all but the top candidates, but the opposite is true. Top candidates know they don’t have to spend 30 minutes filling out an application when they have other opportunities.

Applicant drop-off is real. If you are forcing candidates to go through a process that requires registration on your site or takes an unreasonable amount of time before the applicant can drop off a resume, you’re losing many qualified candidates due to your own application process.

We’re Happy to Help

Make sure your job ad is well written and is being pushed out in front of the audience you are trying to reach with appropriate branding that is appealing to potential applicants and easy for them to find and apply. Consider using programmatic advertising to reach a wider audience and measure the results so you can make an apples-to-apples comparison of what’s bringing you qualified applicants.

NAS Recruitment Innovation is a leader in the field of recruiting marketing, and we can help you write and promote your job postings. If you’d like to make strategic improvements to your process, please contact us for a free evaluation.