Don’t let your Job Ad Messaging become a Recruiting Bottleneck!

So we’ve all seen this story before.  You posted your new job to your recruiting channels this morning and when you take a look at your ATS the next day you see a discouraging sight: NO applicants.  You wonder what’s wrong with your recruiting funnel and instantly take a look at your recruiting metrics to identify the potential bottleneck.  Starting at the beginning of the process, you find the culprit.

 

The Culprit: your Job Ad!

 

In looking at your metrics, you see that candidates are “viewing” your job ad but are not applying for the position.  They obviously find the job title compelling enough to click on and view the job ad, however, after reading your job ad messaging are looking at other job opportunities.  While they certainly could be unqualified for the position, they are also qualified candidates that could be turned off by the recruitment marketing messaging as well.

 

It’s now time to take a look at your job ad messaging. Let’s update and alter our current messaging and then test to see the impact of this new messaging.  The question is how do we change it?  Here’s a few things to try:

 

Length: This is one that happens a good amount.  Make sure your job ads are boiled down to what you are truly looking for in candidates instead of a long list of nice to have’s.  I encourage you to take your current job ad and get a red pen out.  Start taking out sentences & qualifications that are not needed in the job ad as this is a great way to start.

 

Format: Length can be helped out a lot by the format of your job ad.  Adding Headings for different sections and putting information in bullet points can help candidates quickly access the selling points of the job and the skills they must have for it.  The easier your job ad is to read, the more candidates will move on the application.

 

Employer Brand: Qualified candidates want to work at a company that they deem as a good place to work.  Make sure to sell candidates that they should want to work for your company by highlighting the best “perks” that you provide employees.

 

I encourage you to try multiple versions of your job ads and test their effectiveness in driving candidates into your job application.  Your recruitment funnel starts with job distribution and your job ad messaging.  If you have a bottleneck there, you’re leaving a ton of recruiting ROI on the table for every job ad that you post.

 

Originally posted on the SmashFly Recruitment Technology blog.

Views: 69

Comment by C. B. Stalling!! on March 30, 2011 at 12:30pm
I encourage you to do a search where ever you can and pick the PHONE up and call the candidate. You are betting your life that someone MAY read your job posting!!!!!
Comment by Chris Brablc on March 30, 2011 at 12:56pm

I agree to a point.  

 

First, candidates attention spans are probably 20-30 seconds tops, so if you can't communicate the Who, What and Why in that time, you're not being effective.

 

Second, I see job distribution as a simple and less time intensive way of collecting contacts than searching and calling candidates.  We stress a lot on building up contacts into a Talent Network through all your job ads, web sourcing, resume sourcing and Career Site opt-In.  This Network can be valuable to do exactly what you are saying in terms of calling qualified candidates about the position.

 

I think there's a happy medium between the two that can lead to successful recruiting.

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