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.