As recruiters we expect candidate resumes to be impeccable examples of personal marketing tools, easy to understand, and without any grammatical errors or typos. Unfortunately we don’t always have the same high standards when it comes to one of our most important employment branding tools; our job descriptions.
Are you getting the most from your job descriptions? If not, here are a few tips that might help you attract more candidates.
- Proofread, proofread, and proofread some more: Just as we expect resumes to be a good first impression of candidates, your job description is also your one chance to make a good first impression with job seekers. If you have rampant spelling errors, typos, grammatically incorrect language (and the list goes on), job seekers will pass up your opportunity in favor of companies with a more polished presentation. If you know you are prone to making these errors, have someone else review your description prior to posting.
- Develop a big bold “WIIFM”: Job seekers want to know “what’s in it for me?” Use your job description as a way to introduce what your company has to offer outside of the traditional compensation and benefits. What is your work place environment like? What is your company’s culture? How can you highlight key aspects of your corporation and the job that would appeal to job seekers? Here are two awesome examples of great ways to hook your audience:
“How big can you think? At Yahoo!, we’re not looking to hire people who think like us…we’re looking to hire people who think like you.”
"The sky’s the limit: You know the story you've read in newspapers and magazines—the one about somebody who's a runaway success at their job and says, "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do something I enjoy so much!" Now close your eyes. Put yourself in that picture. Be a part of IBM.”
Creating statements like this helps to establish a personal connection with your potential employees. It shows that you care not just about hiring them for the job, but you support their career. Think about your company’s current marketing message or product and how you might play off that for your employment message.
- Get Creative: Sick of job descriptions that start with a snappy question? So are most job seekers. There are other ways to get the attention of the job seeker and appeal to what they are looking for in their next career move. Can you add graphics to your job posting? Again, how can you tie in your employment messaging with your product marketing message? You should market your open positions in the same way you would market your product to potential customers.
- Keep it short and sweet: What reaction do you have to a candidate who sends you a 10+ page resume? You’ll likely skim through the first page and if you don’t find what you are looking for, move on to the candidates with 1-3 page resumes that concisely describes what they have to offer your company. Same with candidates. Instead of trying to make your job description all things to all people with lengthy lists of technical and experiential requirements, boil your description down to the key elements you are looking for in a candidate. Once you get them hooked you can provide them with access to other resources that might explain your company or position better such as blogs, podcasts or your career site.
- Stay away from internal language and esoteric jargon: Sometimes job descriptions only meant for internal consumption get posted externally. It happens. At the same time, it might be a good idea to stay away from internal acronyms and product code names altogether. The last thing you want to do is leak information on a new product that hasn’t been made public yet. At the same time, if job seekers can’t understand the requirements for the position they won’t apply even if they are internal candidates. Try to keep your descriptions focused using universal technical terms and requirements. You’ll have much better luck attracting people to your postings.
The key here is that you don’t have to be a big fancy corporation with lots of marketing power to attract the candidates you want. Spend time thinking about the key values of your company and how you can instill that message into your job descriptions. If you put good effort into polishing your image and using a few traditional and new marketing techniques to promote your openings, you’ll have better luck finding the perfect match for your open opportunities.
But don’t just take it from me. Job seekers if you are reading this, what tips would you give employers about writing great job descriptions?
Zoe