How will our job advertisement be attractive, attract attention and generate applications?
Or the 9 critical points of advertising wording
6,340 jobs, 1,300 advertisers - this was the statistic on the main page of the leading online job portal the other day. Of these, there are over 700 advertisements in the engineering category alone. These numbers are very large, especially when you add how quickly the ads rotate and how quickly each ad gets to the bottom of the list.
If these are the facts, then of course we can look for alternative solutions, and we often have to do so in order to get a suitable number and quality of candidates at the end of our recruitment. After all, a recruitment can be considered successful if we were not only able to arouse the interest of one or two people, but there are a sufficient number of candidates from whom to choose.
If we have decided to stay on online platforms, it is worth considering some aspects in order for the advertisement to be successful.
In the lists of positions - if you search for a specific field - the advertiser's name/logo, the name of the position, the place of work and other, smaller information are shown first. So here are four relevant pieces of information, on the basis of which the viewer decides: to look into it or not.
The basic condition for all the points and good advice that follows here is that the company advertising the job appears in a good light to the target audience. Is the company known or unknown? Is it a big name or a local business known only to its narrow target market, or rather a “noname”? Don't get me wrong: even a well-known company abroad can be unknown on the Hungarian market. These are questions that should be asked well in advance of the advertisements and the corresponding PR activities should be carried out so that the represented company becomes a well-known or at least well-known name.
Let's take a look at what to pay attention to when writing the ad.
The ad and the name of the position are right there. In the first instance, the success of the matter depends or falls on it. The name of the ad, or rather the advertised position, must be consistent with the content of the ad in order to get those viewing the ad to send their application. After all, if based on the name they think of something other than what is in the content, we will not receive an application. Use a simple, descriptive and accessible position name.
We avoid excessively profession-specific designations. The designation "RFID Engineer HR6846305X" (note: RFID: Radio Frequency IDentification) may say something to a few people, but the primary purpose of the advertisement is not to "over-filter" applicants, because this type of selection then makes it impossible to choose at all as we will have so few candidates.
A large energy company once posted a job seeking a Network Computing Associate using their title and stuck with that position title. The job covered the position of an entry-level electrical engineer. What happened? Those who understood the title at all did not apply - because they already worked for them. The person to whom the ad was intended did not understand the title. Result: 3 applicants who were not suitable in the first place... Seeing this, it was easy to convince the partner to change the designation, so we were much more successful with the - very imaginative - "Beginner electrical engineer" designation, producing about 40 applications.
When choosing the name of the position, it is therefore a fundamental aspect that it is primarily understood by the target audience. Whether we don't understand or disagree with him is of little importance. The question is who is addressed by the ad.
For Generation Y (generation Y: includes people born between 1976 and 1995), but especially for Z (those born between 1995 and 2012), it is very important that the terminology they use is followed by the name of the position. There is not much difference in translation between the "facility manager" and the facility manager, even more so in the number of applicants. Young people "bite" more on ads that follow youthful, modern and Anglo-Saxon terminology.
In addition, there are stereotypes - and I would not undertake to list them all, but here is e.g. a typical case of the HR assistant. What do people associate when they see this? Young, mainly career-starting, female applicants are certainly expected, and you really don't have to understand anything - if that's the case or not. As a result, men almost never apply for such an ad.
However, the most serious mistake comes only after this. For some reason, the majority of advertisers besiege the middle part of the triple unit "who(at) - what they do - what they get for it", i.e. the unit called "tasks" is the most used in the advertisements. This is a degree better than when we come across an ad focused on benefits (fortunately, this is not typical). But what about the "who" part, i.e. the element of the ad when we present the company, i.e. position ourselves? Because here we can cover the parts that present our company's goals, values, ideas, way of thinking and other unique features, i.e. goals-values type elements. And if the correlations are true that if we have an offer geared towards benefits, then we get financially motivated applicants (short-term motivation); if the advertisement is focused on tasks, then we will have task-motivated and interested candidates (which is not bad), then it is true, moreover, it is much, much better if we have candidates who match the values and thinking, because this is the highest level of motivation and commitment. Everything else can be solved with this and includes the other two levels as well.
And this part is typically left out of the ads.
Unfortunately, the company name is not well known beyond the narrow profession, so it does not attract potential candidates who are outside the narrow profession.
Of course, this is not true everywhere: it is typically the biggest players in the labor market who give the most to properly position themselves, even though they seem to need it the least, and yet. After all, they know: in this way, it is possible to acquire like-minded professionals.
If we stick to the most sought-after segment of the labor market, the highly qualified professionals, then based on our own survey, the professionals who remain in their current workplace are mostly due to these factors:
- are satisfied with the variety of the job,
- they work in a good, flexible and prepared team,
- their staff are professional and helpful.
At the same time, the ideal workplace for them has a pleasant, friendly atmosphere, and this is primarily due to good team spirit. They also consider the opportunity for development in the ideal workplace to be important, and of course financial benefits are not unimportant either, but this was only among the first 5 factors. There is also an interest in challenges and independence.
So we are doing well if we rely on these buzzwords when positioning our company, and then we will most likely not run alongside them - provided that they otherwise cover reality.
The ad must of course address the tasks and expectations and must contain all relevant information, but - we repeat - it must not be "overfiltered". The problem with the overfiltered ad is that it produces so few applicants (or even none!) that we can't even go further with the ones that are almost right (assuming a compromise case) or ask them for recommendations. There may be an error, e.g. over-screening is also related to the place of work. If it can be guessed (or rather: it can be known with a suitable target group estimate) in advance that there will be too few applicants with the advertisement narrowed down to the given city, then we lose the possibility of convincing a candidate who may live within walking distance, and we also lose the possibility of recommendations.
The advertisement must contain all the information necessary for the application (address, method of submission of materials, which language CV is required, etc.), as well as more direct and confidence-inspiring contact information, if there is a contact person. It may be a few phone calls more, but it is possible that we will reach new candidates or referrals.
Our ad - especially if it takes place in large quantities - should be individually "designed", designed to match the image of our company - this ensures recognition and identifiability, and they will remember us better, or candidates for our company. After a while, they recognize colors and shapes. For a few thousand forints, we can easily have a unique image created for our job advertisement.
The text of the ad and the style of communication must be adapted to our target group. It's possible if the target group is the twenty-year-old age group. This is also true in relation to wording: well-thought-out and well-formulated texts are needed for successful advertising. And while we're at it: don't forget to run the spell checker through the text, because there might have been something that we didn't notice ourselves. Better yet, review the text with your colleague; a "fresh" eye will immediately spot a mistake that we ourselves did not notice even after looking it over many times. The job advertisement should radiate professionalism, and it is almost impossible to achieve this with spelling mistakes!
Let's briefly review the most important information:
- Let's make sure beforehand that the company name appears familiar to the target group.
- Mark exactly the position you are looking for. Most people run through the headline (position) quickly, the most important thing here is to grab their attention. Let's refrain from position names specific to specific companies; pay attention to the nuances between the position designation. For some positions, we already write in the title in parentheses which settlement the job is in.
- It is important that the company advertising the job we position it skillfully, we try to reflect his way of thinking, his way of thinking or his company culture. Let's try to include specific elements, e.g. what makes this business different from others like it.
- It is worth including parts in bold in the ad to highlight the most important and revealing phrases and keywords. Let's use catchphrases, to which the audience reacts.
- Don't "over filter", i.e. don't make the requirements too strict. It is better to have several applicants, from whom you will have to choose a little, than none at all.
- Let's specify its a contact person the name of the person to whom the applicant can apply by name, and from whom he can receive additional information - thereby making the advertisement more personal.
- If there is a way, let's use it unique ad design.
- Place an ad in a foreign language if serious language skills are required. Thus, it is assumed that people who can read and understand the given language will apply for the ad. THE adapt the communication style to the target audience. Let's strive for a unique tone and a personal tone (e.g. in relation to the tasks, the employer). You have to find the tone that best suits your target audience. If the target audience is a younger age group, the advertising points can be worded differently, e.g. Instead of "tasks", we can use the expressions "you will have tasks", "the ideal candidate" instead of "expectations", and "why they like to work for us" instead of "why you should work for the company". The point is the same, only the tone is different. If the target audience is mainly middle-aged, it is worth paying special attention to their persuasion. They think more conservatively, strive for security and stability, so the use of reassuring expressions can help, e.g. stable background, long-term job opportunity, expanding scope of duties.
- Let's pay attention to the orderly, aesthetic editing, the precise and accurate wording, and the spelling!