4 Keys to Writing a Great Job Posting Ad

Manny Medina, CEO of GroupTalent

Great article in today’s ERE Daily from Manny Medina, CEO of GroupTalent, a platform that developers and designers use to connect with employers based on preferences and availability.

According to Manny, well written job postings are critical to attracting the right talent for your positions yet too often employers rely on job postings which make heavy use of meaningless jargon or descriptions of their organizations, environment, culture, and jobs which could apply to just about any organization. I agree, but what I liked about Manny’s article is that he didn’t stop there and then just tell employers to do a better job of writing their postings. Far too many of these types of articles just do that. Employers are then left with knowing what not to do but not knowing what to do.

Manny’s article indicated that his extensive review of job postings revealed that the best performing job posting ads included four elements:

1. One liners about what the company did.
2. Long form descriptions with extensive detail about the exact challenges the developer would face along with what would be accomplished.
3. A short list of the requirements; using the actual expectations of experience.
4. Salary information. Outlining salary details was quite rare in the job description, but it was extremely effective to finding the right candidates.

If the recruiter (or person writing the job description) doesn’t have the pertinent details like salary and day-to-day aspects of the job, this reflects an internal communications issue that needs to be addressed. Recruiters should have all the resources needed to attract the best talent.