Recruitment Feature: Job Ad Basics
February 18 2013
Not too little, not too much, with three vital ingredients and a splash of flavouring... Continuing our celebrations of job ad no.100,000, Nick Thomas gives a simple but effective recipe for a good job ad.
Think Positive!
A tip from Julian Hadfield
of
Resources Group
There are, no doubt, countless articles and opinions on what constitutes a good recruitment advertisement and how best to write them. However, in our experience the most important thing to remember about ad writing is to emphasise, and keep emphasising, what's good about the job and/or company, and why people should be interested in it. So often we see ads just listing the details of the job as a checklist of 'must haves' or 'your tasks will include'. Sure, we all know that one has to 'work to tight deadlines', for example, but has anyone ever seen that in an advert and thought 'That's for me!'? Probably not.
So, to write a good recruitment ad, simply ask yourself - What is the best feature about the role or company? - and write it down, then - What is the second best feature?, and so on. Try to list around half a dozen positive attributes, and: 'voila' - the key points are all there and the rest should write itself. If, however, you cannot think of anything good to say about the job, it probably isn't worth advertising!
Julian Hadfield
I don't know, perhaps after reading so many thousands of them I'm not actually in a good position to say what makes a good ad - I'm not exactly coming to them fresh and with the same mindset as the average candidate! But then I'm not going to set out what *I* like to see in an ad - the following is built up from a combination of recruiter and candidate comments, common sense, and of course an analysis of what has seemed to work and what has seemed not to.
Bear in mind that it's what works for this format - if you're advertising in traditional media or emailing job descriptions to candidates, for example, they may need a different approach - but the great majority of recruitment ads are on the web now, so...
1. A good ad is not too long, or too short.
What's too long? Well, many ads appear to have been written by lawyers, and are replete with phrases like 'your job may or may not include, but is not limited to the following' or with vast long lists of activities which could be summed up nicely in a few words. I'm aware that HR departments often have standard requirements and receive legal advice, but as 90 percent of our advertisers don't do this, I can't see why it's a legal requirement for the other ten - and it does make readers switch off.
Also unappealing are great long panegyrics about the wonderful company in question. Yes you do need to stand out, and you do need to sell the company - see below - but you should find a way to do this in a few choice phrases.
What's too short? That's easier - it's too short if you don't mention all the things you really should - which I'll try and detail below.
Rules of thumb shouldn't be seen as inflexible, but are useful sometimes so let's say that two paragraphs of five lines is on the short side; while more than one page of Word, font size 10, is too much. What's that in words? 150 is probably a minimum, 500 a maximum.
2. A good ad gives information about the
company, the
role, and the
candidate / skills and experience sought.
Yes, those are the three key topics to address, and they seem obvious, I know, but they're often not all there. The one that's most often omitted is the company - this is very important to candidates and even if they can't be told in the ad who the company is, a lot can be said about it.
Recruitment consultants will advise their clients on this in no uncertain terms. Bill Maynard, Team Manager - Analysis and Information at MR recruitment specialist RP Cushing, comments: 'too often, job adverts do not sell the company as well as they sell the job. Often there is a lot of detail on the actual role but in reality people move companies more than they move jobs.'
Some employers fall into the trap of assuming that candidates have to impress them and they don't have to impress candidates. In actual fact it's a two-way thing, and nowhere is this more obvious than on a site like ours where candidates are likely to have a long list of qualifying jobs and are *not* encouraged to blanket their CV off to every qualifying vacancy, but to pick and choose. CSA Recruitment's Clive Warren describes this: 'What many ads lack is a compelling reason to leave your current job and consider joining the organisation in question'. First up then, sell your company to the candidate.
Anecdotal feedback from candidates suggests this is not done with general talk about how great the company is - MR jobseekers are a cynical lot and no employer is going to write that their company is bad. Writers need to be specific about company culture and looking to attract people who will fit, rather than worrying about alienating some candidates. A good way to think of it is not to ask yourself 'how good a company are we?' or even 'what makes our company different from other companies?', but 'what makes our company different from other
good companies?' For example, companies often describe themselves as 'work hard, play hard' or having a good work-life balance. These are contrasting ways of summing up the style of a firm and you need to choose one or the other. Similarly, if you're award-winning, say which awards (briefly), and if you're a 'great company to work for' it'll help if you can cite a statistic or two to back that up.
In terms of the role, I can't say much except that too much detail is a turn-off (3 levels of bullet points anyone?) - don't forget that your aim in this ad is to get the candidate to contact you and express interest - you
do not need to be exhaustive here.
In terms of the candidate sought, try to mix specific qualifications or experience with a general description of attributes and types - or at least be aware that your description doesn't have to be all one or the other. And, to settle an ongoing dispute or at least give my two penn'orth, ads that suggest a certain number of years of experience - a range or a minimum - are perfectly legal provided you have a good business reason for stating it. Candidates often find this helpful as a guide - remember they may be looking through scores of ads and don't want to go to scores of interviews only to find that they're way out of their depth in three quarters of them.
3. Say something interesting and say it early.
Rather ironically perhaps, I have left this till last :)
Even in a good length job ad you may have only a couple of sentences tops to really get the attention of the reader. If you've just been voted the best company to work for, or have an inspirational MD who's always on the telly, or are the fastest-growing company in category X, or have a new high-tech proprietary technique that is taking Europe or the US by storm, don't assume that 'anyone who's serious about us will get to the third paragraph' - get it in quick.
...and then write a reasonable amount, covering those three key areas and selling your company to the candidate, and you've gone some way to filling that vacancy.
As with last week's articles I'd be very happy to hear your views on this. Tomorrow or on Wednesday I'll be presenting my own and some other people's views on whether we're managed to attract and retain talent, and why.
Nick Thomas
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
