You’ve a job to fill, so you want your job advert to be noticed for the right reasons. Whether you are advertising your jobs online, or in print, here are a few tips for keeping you on the right track and get attention from the best candidates:
- Make your job title sound interesting (as far as you can). Ok, so ‘support worker’ or ‘administrator’ aren’t glamorous job titles, but candidates could be more interested if the title is adapted to something which will catch their eye e.g. ‘Dynamic, Creative Admin expert’ or ‘Support Workers with a Difference’. This way, they’ll want to know more.
You should also think about the kind of words that your ideal applicants will be using to find the role in their online searches. This will help you to settle on the best words to use in your advert title.
- Don’t make the advert too wordy! Too much text in a job advert can be off-putting, and make you seem like quite a bureaucratic employer. You should include all of the pertinent details while keeping an eye on the length of the advert. It can be a difficult balancing act to strike but it gets easier the more often you do it.
- Along those lines, DO NOT include the whole job description. It might seem too restrictive, or might make candidates think they can’t add some personality to the job. Keep it brief, with maybe 6 – 10 short bullets covering the key job elements. Being able to be concise is a skill all of its own and writing a fairly short job advert that still hits all of the main points isn’t the easiest to get the hang of but is well worth the effort.
- Skills – please, please don’t write a long list of everything. It really isn’t necessary – just keep it brief, ensuring you include the most relevant skills. Including every possible skill you just might want candidates to have (but don’t necessarily need) could discount some great people from applying, through their own self-de-selection. This sounds quite basic but many people just try to cram everything possible into the advert.
- If you can publish the salary or salary range, then publish it - If not, then explain how the salary will be determined. Many applicants don’t like it when there is no salary specified and it can even put people off from applying as they don’t want to waste their time in case the salary was too low.
- And finally, make it clear you want some decent information about your candidates. We’ve probably all seen the jobs boards which allow people to apply with just one line of text, no cover letter and no CV. Make sure your candidates know you want their CV, and at least a brief cover letter explaining why you should consider them for the job! This really isn’t a big ask. The more information you have, the better your chances of finding someone that you can work with going forward.
