Getting your job advert right is crucial to the success of your recruitment campaign, and yet mastering the art of the job ad can be challenging. Wave’s Emily Buckley details 8 tips to help you to create job adverts that attract, engage and compel quality candidates to apply.
Great hires start with a great job advert. The humble job ad is the foundation that underpins the entire recruitment process. Get that first stage wrong and it could all come crumbling down around you. The candidate attraction journey starts with a job advert and without an optimised job advert, finding high calibre candidates quickly will be challenging. The problem is that creating a job advert that is found in relevant searches by qualified candidates, that engages them throughout and compels them to apply, can also be challenging. And that’s where we can help. Read on for a job ad creation masterclass!
Tip #1: Stop focusing on writing and start selling!
Recruiters aren’t copywriters but they are marketers and sales people. As a recruiter, you know how to sell a job to a candidate – you do that every day. Take that knowledge and that passion and put that in your job advert. Easier said than done, you might be thinking. If you do struggle with a blank screen, enlist help – there is now a range of recruitment tech that has incorporated AI, with WaveTrackR’s AI Job Advert Assistant the first of its kind to launch in 2022. Generative AI isn’t perfect but what it is ideal for is as a kickstart to the writing process. Give it enough of the right information from the job spec, put the right prompts in and you’ll have a decent, well structured draft to work from. Then you just need to add your human touch and edit where necessary.
AI isn’t essential though – as long as you know best practices and follow them, plus detail the essentials of the job in a readable and exciting way, you’ll be writing a great job ad. Just remember that it is an advert just like any other B2C advert, selling a product to a customer (product = job, customer = candidate). How would you sell a job to a candidate over the phone or in person? You certainly wouldn’t reel off every single responsibility and requirement, you’d pick the highlights and the benefits and go from there. Use that same mentality in your adverts and they’ll be transformed.
Tip #2: Publish the salary but keep the range tight
It’s 2024. The question of whether or not to be transparent about pay shouldn’t be a thing. Publishing the salary on a job ad is not only something that the vast majority of candidates now expect, it’s a legal requirement in many areas (though not currently the UK). There’s been a huge amount of research into the relationship between pay transparency on job adverts and application numbers and the findings always point to a significant uplift in the number of applications received when salary is disclosed. When pay is a huge motivator – and even more so during a cost of living crisis – there will be many who simply won’t apply for a job if they have no idea what the salary being offered is. By comparison, in a recent LinkedIn survey, 91% of respondents said that including salary ranges in a job post would positively affect their decision to apply.
Salary transparency doesn’t just increase application numbers, it increases the quality of those applications. There are so many occasions when candidates get mid-way through the process only to drop out because they’re told the salary and it doesn’t meet their expectations. That’s not only a waste of everyone’s time, it reflects poorly on both the employer and the recruiter. Being transparent about the salary in the job ad will also allow you to gain candidate trust, fostering an honest and transparent relationship from the very start of the process. However, a salary range with a gap as big as the Grand Canyon won’t do you any favours. Salary ranges that are tens of thousands of pounds wide do not amount to salary transparency. If it doesn’t give a candidate a realistic expectation of what they might be offered, it’s pointless at best and feels like gaming the candidate at worst. And that does not make for a positive candidate experience.
Tip #3: Publish the job location and don’t use creative license on its remote credentials
Listing a location is a requirement of most of the big job boards as it helps their algorithms to ensure relevancy in searches. Adding this kind of structured data will also make it easier for search engines, including Google for Jobs, to find it in keyword searches and, like salary, will help candidates to see straight away whether the job is suitable for them. Data from CV-Library has found that job ads that display a town and county receive nearly 17% more applications than those that don’t specify a location. Add a postcode and that percentage rises to just under 30%. Don’t add a vague location covering a huge area though as the job board will just take the central point and code it as such which could skew the results and end up limiting the relevant candidates that see your advert.
Advertising a remote/work from home/work from anywhere/hybrid position? Make that clear by posting it at the top of your advert as location flexibility has become a huge job search motivator. However, don’t try to work the system by luring candidates by listing a job as remote if in reality it is hybrid. This tactic is doomed to backfire as those applying for a job that’s advertised as remote are likely specifically looking for remote work. Finding out in the interview that they’ll actually be required to come into the office two or three days a week will not go down well with candidates. Just be honest. Lots of people are looking for hybrid work and many will actively be put off by a remote position.
Tip #4: A job advert is not a job description
We’ve covered this briefly in tip #1 but it is one of the most common errors that recruiters make when writing their job adverts. Never, ever simply copy and paste the job description and make that your job ad. A job ad is there to sell, a job spec is ultimately an HR document – both important but the two perform very different functions. The job description will be an exhaustive list of responsibilities, activities, duties, qualifications and skills. The job ad should include just the essential skills and responsibilities, keeping it open to as wide and diverse a pool of (relevant) candidates as possible. Succinctly explain how the role fits into the business, what the candidate will be doing on a daily basis, and list the key responsibilities of that role and the essential skills needed (the key word being essential).
The focus of the ad should be on the reasons why candidates should apply – benefits, company culture, career progression opportunities, and so on. Find the nuance that makes this job interesting or different, use that as the hook and make that the centre of your sales pitch. Benefits don’t just come in the form of ‘extras’ – if there are opportunities for candidates to make their own mark on the role, such as creating their own strategies or forming their own team, use that to sell the job. List the more ‘traditional’ benefits too, always thinking, “what would make me want to apply for this job?” Pay-related benefits always go down well but benefits such as flexible working, wellbeing initiatives, L&D, any caring support, and extra holiday are all things that could sway a candidate and give them that extra push to want to apply.
Tip #5: Be personable but don’t be quirky with the job title
With your job advert, you’re establishing an early relationship with candidates. This will often be the first contact you’ll have with a candidate so it’s important that it has that human touch – another reason why you should always go in and edit if you do use AI to help you write your job ad. Different organisations and industries will require different tones and that tone should reflect the wider employer brand but your tone should always be personable, warm, and approachable. Address the copy directly to the reader – use ‘you’ and ‘you’re’ so that the candidate can imagine themselves at the company doing the role that is being advertised.
What you should never do is try to and promote a fun and creative work environment by using a quirky, slightly off-the-wall job title. It may seem like a great way to grab candidates’ attention but in reality it will do the opposite as far fewer relevant candidates will see it. Why? 2 words: keyword searches. Think about how you would search for a job – you’d probably type in the job title and maybe the location. So if the job title you are using doesn’t match the title candidates are searching for, it is unlikely to get picked up in searches. If you’re advertising for a Retail Assistant, use that exact job title. Merchandising Ninja might sound more fun but no-one looking for a Retail Assistant job is going to be searching for those keywords.
Tip #6: Optimise the number of words and bullet points you use
When it comes to length, there’s a sweet spot for job ads. It’s a bit like the 3 bears and their porridge – what you’re aiming for is not too long (or interest will be lost), not too short (or risk missing key detail), but just right. And, according to recent Wave data, that sweet spot seems to be 300-350 words – that’s the average length that attracts the highest percentage of applications. This is closely followed by 250-300 and 350-400. Any shorter than 200 words and applications severely drop off, as with job adverts that are longer than 500 words.
Similarly, there’s an optimal number when it comes to bullet point lists. These are great for clearly and concisely detailing skills and qualifications, benefits, and role activities, making the ad skimmable. However, a long list of bullet points will deter a whole range of candidates from reading them at all, especially when it comes to skill and qualification requirements. A maximum of 5 bullet points per list is plenty and will avoid eyes glazing over and talent pools shrinking.
Tip # 7: Words are powerful – use non-discriminatory language and avoid jargon
Be very careful about the words you use in your job advert or you could unwittingly deter a range of candidates. In order to appeal to all candidates, regardless of gender, age, disability, or background, it is essential to optimise your job ad copy. That means no direct reference to gender, e.g. ‘barmaid,’ ‘foreman’ or ‘cameraman,’ but also avoiding phrases that could discriminate in other ways. For example, asking for a ‘native English speaker’ could be deemed racist. Instead, use ‘fluent English speaker.’ Using words such as ‘young,’ ‘youthful’ or ‘mature’ could be seen as discriminating on age and ‘active’ or ‘athletic’ could exclude those with physical disabilities.
Words don’t have to point to certain characteristics to be discriminatory – using industry jargon can have the same effect, by excluding people that don’t understand it. It can confuse, intimidate and be incredibly off-putting – none of the things you want candidates to experience. Always substitute corporate babble with meaningful and clear language that sells the job to a wide range of candidates.
Tip #8: Keywords are important but never overstuff
Using the right keywords and keyword phrases in both the job title and in the main body of the job advert will help relevant candidates to find your jobs as job board and search engine algorithms will match them to searches. The most important keyword should appear in the job title and 3-5 secondary or related keywords should be integrated into the main section. How do you know what keywords you should be using? Free keyword research tools such as the Google Ads Keyword Planner will suggest the phrases that are relevant to your job and most highly searched for by relevant candidates. You can also research the keywords that competitors are using.
However, you should never overuse keywords. Overstuffing your job advert copy with keywords will severely affect its readability and its ability to engage candidates. Not only that, certain search engines, including Google, can detect deliberate keyword stuffing and will penalise such content by giving it a lower ranking.
Crafting adverts that relevant, high calibre candidates find, engage with and want to apply for is no mean feat but these tips should help. And always remember, as a recruiter you’re an expert at selling jobs so use that to help you to write job adverts that convert!
Wave aims to create a world where talent is never missed by providing an all-in-one candidate attraction solution through a combination of technology, data and human expertise via WaveTrackR (data-powered candidate sourcing tool, multi-poster, and analytics platform), WaveSites (high-performance recruitment websites) and WaveMedia (strategic recruitment media buying).
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