The Best Way to Write Effective Job Posting Ads

Job postings ads have existed for hundreds of years. We called them help wanted classified ads when newspapers were the primary media used by job seekers to research what employers were hiring. If you went into any college or university’s career service office or state unemployment office as recently as the 1990’s you almost certainly would have seen job openings written on index cards and tacked to a corkboard. These were the original job posting ads. Whether a job was advertised in a newspaper or tacked to a corkboard, space was extremely limited and so employers were forced to be very, very brief in their description of a job opening.

The birth of job boards in the 1990’s should have radically changed how employers advertised their job openings. Unfortunately, few have made any substantial changes other than just adding more information about their requirements. Very few employers paint a picture for a candidate about the organization’s industry, what the organization does, the work environment, the culture, and the people. Yet talk to any highly qualified candidate about why they choose to work for one employer versus another with a similar employment opportunity and it always comes down to the intangibles the candidate expects to get from the job and not whether they meet the employer’s requirements and perhaps preferences. To properly engage with and hire these candidates, employers need to do a better job of marketing their employment opportunities.

In today’s webinar, Andrea McEwen Henderson, National Account Manager for College Recruiter hosts College Recruiter President Steven Rothberg, who will discuss the best way to write effective job posting ads.

Topics Discussed:

1. What makes for a well-written job-posting ad?

• Goes well beyond what the vast majority of job posting ads are today. Almost every job posting that I see is written from the employer’s perspective, includes the job title location and a brief description of what you’ll be doing, requirements and preferences for what the candidate needs to be well qualified. A well-written job-posting ad includes all of that and talks to the needs and wants of the candidates. What kind of industry is this? What kind of organization is this? What is the size of the organization? What’s the culture like; top-down militaristic or freely run democratic; conservative or liberal? Not enough employers use video, a picture is worth 1000 words while a video is worth 1000 pictures, don’t replace the text but have both text and video. The ad needs to speak to the candidate’s needs, desires, and goals.

2. What percentage of job posting ads are well written?

• 1 or 2 percent. Almost every ad I see is written from the employer’s view. Another thing I don’t see enough of are employers that include humor in their ads if the culture in the organization has humor included in the daily conversation. To show the true nature of the company and what your work life will feel like.

3. Why aren’t most job posting ads well written?

• Lack of time for some of the recruiters because most of them are so busy that they don’t have time to be thoughtful. More time at the front end, writing it at the perspective of the job seeker, what would they want to see.

4. Should employers include video in their job posting ads?

• For sure, there are very few poorly done employment videos. Employers that decide to do a video know they have to take the time to do it well and usually spend a fair amount of money on it. Now it takes virtually no money with all the smart phones and webcams, they can be cheesy and yet it still gets the culture of the company across very well. The best videos show what the company is passionate about, whether it be who they are partners with, who they support, or even humorous videos.

5. Can you share any tips for employers on how they can make their job postings better?

• Job title! Use the job title that the candidate would use to find your job, not necessarily what the exact position name is. If there is a legal need to include the specific position name, put it in the job description.
• Write the job posting in a funnel, start with the industry and what’s it like. Then get more specific and talk about the company: the size, culture, products, services, and customers. Then even more specific with the departments and divisions if you have them, which one the employee will be in. Then finally talk about the job itself. This gives them the context in order to see the bigger picture. Go ahead and talk about the requirements and preferences because people should be able to weed themselves out.
• Include the salary information. It’s really easy for candidates to figure out how much you pay people in that position even if you don’t include it in the actual job posting. So if you are trying to withhold salary information to get a negotiating edge, stop. By trying to have an edge over an applicant, you are implying that you want to pay that person less than what they deserve, than what’s fair. Just tell them what a fair wage is; it can be a range depending on qualifications. You should be able to explain to someone who is minimally qualified why their wage is lower than others who are extremely qualified.
• Again, it is very important to communicate the culture. If it’s a very button down, formal, serious, autocratic type of environment, tell them. If it’s a very funny, loosely run, somehow at the end of the day get your work done type of environment, and tell them. You want the environment of your company to be wrong for them, it will not help them to thrive and will make both the employer and the employee frustrated.