It is an often-overlooked fact that top talents judge companies by the way they communicate vacancies and write a job posting.
Posting a well-written job description communicates a high level of company professionalism, which will either help attract quality applicants or dispel them altogether.
The fact is that your approach to hiring is part of your brand. In the same way that customers flock to trusted and professional brands, so do top talent.
The implication is that it is no longer enough to list job duties and prerequisites and call it a day. If your job posting is not screaming professionalism and quality thinking, it is not serving your business.
If you ever hope to attract the best talent as a hiring manager, then you must approach job postings the same way marketing executives approach sales copies. That means strong messaging that lays out your culture and mission, as well as clear expectations.
Here are three tips to help you on how to write a job posting.
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3 Tips to Help You Write a Better Job Posting
1. Well-crafted and effective job titles
Nothing screams unprofessionalism as fast as a confusing job title. Unfortunately, many companies often confuse applicants by the way they label open positions.
It is always a mistake to assume that your company’s title to the job opening is the best for your job posting. It is much safer to do extensive research to validate the job title.
Alternatively, you can avoid this trap by not getting hung up on the title. Instead, spend energy in describing what this person does.
For example, if internally your company uses the title “account executive” to describe the employee that liaises with clients, if that same title is used for your open position, it becomes subject to multiple interpretations.
Applicants may be uncertain about whether it means an outside salesperson or a client liaison type role. Therefore, your job title needs to convey this distinction by describing what is unique to the position.
A clear job title that accurately describes your open position will garner the most potential fits to your posting. Whatever confuses or puts off top talent from applying to your company is bad for your organisation’s health.
An ineffective job title has the potential to derail your recruitment efforts. It’s a gap that you want to mind.
2. Create messaging that sells your company’s culture and mission
Once upon a time, candidates had to sell themselves to a company; they had to explain why they were the best person for the job.
In recent years, there’s been a shift. We are now officially in an era where companies have also to sell themselves to top talents. This is the idea behind the concept of employer branding.
Nowadays, candidates expect you to sell them on your company. This means that as an employer, you’ve got to grab their attention immediately. And so, if your job posting is too stuffy or formal, candidates will wonder at your company culture.
More applicants are learning to read between the lines and reflect on what it will be like to work for your organisation.
For instance, to millennials and emerging Gen Z applicants, a formally written job advertisement might signal an unfriendly atmosphere, one in which employees are subject to strict rules. The answer to this dilemma is to learn to speak the language of your target applicants.
Another crucial selling point for organisations is a strong web presence. If applicants find your job posting engaging enough, their next point of call is a visit to your website and social media accounts.
If your website looks like it was built in 1997 or your last tweet was posted in 2010, they will probably move on without applying.
To many candidates, an archaic website and abandoned social media handles are major red flags. The thinking is that if you haven’t put in the resources to have a modern website or update your social channels, candidates may assume you won’t invest in their success either.
3. Mobile friendly postings
As millennials and Gen Z continue to dominate the talent scape, your business will fail to reach them if your messages are not smartphone-friendly.
The implication of this is that your job postings must be more mobile-friendly. This, in turn, means you’ll need to use shorter paragraphs, fewer words, and clearer messaging.
You don’t want your job postings to be too lengthy because candidates will not read them. Candidates want to know the necessary details.
What industry your company is in. What are the essential prerequisites? You also want to avoid writing lengthy company profiles because most job searchers bypass all that introductory text and scroll straight to the job description.
Therefore, the shorter that scroll time, the better. If the position sounds interesting, they will then jump to your website to learn more about your company.
In summary,
Attracting top talent is crucial to the survival of your organisation. The relationship between the quality of your talent and your business performance is too dramatic to be overlooked.
You don’t want to hurt your chances of attracting talent to your organisation by violating the most basic principles of talent acquisition.
If you would like more guidance on how to hire top talent, read our book on hiring.
