How to Write Effective Job Posting Ads
Great advice in today's Interbiznet Bugler about how to write an effective job posting ad:
Realize first that you have less than 2 seconds to capture the mind’s eye of your ad reader. The first quarter- to-half-second, the human eye scans colors and shapes and in the next 1.5 seconds drinks the bold type and entire first line. A headline with five words or less is where the viewer decides whether to continue or move on. If your job headline does not lead to a benefit or take longer than 3 seconds to “show the money” in your digital ad; guess what? You lose. The vast majority scan a job posts headline and pick up only the bold or italicized copy and dollar signs. Less than 17% of online job seekers read word-by-word. Your ad does not mention specific money or benefits? You lose a great number of your qualified readers in the blink of an eye.
It is unfortunate that many of those who write job posting ads seem to have no training in how to write effective advertising copy. Given the importance of writing good sourcing ads, you would think that schools that offer human resource programs would emphasize that part of the curriculum, but many of the HR people that I've talked with about the issue tell me that they had no marketing classes of any kind when they were in school.
The bottom line, folks, is that you are selling an opportunity. While including information about your needs and wants (job description and qualifications) is important and a good idea, very few job postings include any information about the needs and wants of the candidate. If you want the star candidates to apply, then you need to convince them that your opportunity is better than the opportunity being offered to them by the employer across the street. Some hiring managers seem to think that people should be interested simply because they're going to receive a paycheck. Well, if those hiring managers are only interested in hiring the most desperate of people then they're right. But those are not the people who drive successful organizations. It is the stars. So write your postings so that they speak to the needs and wants of the stars and you'll end up with more than your fair share.
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