Finding the right employees is essential to growing your business. But how can you find the best candidates and make sure they apply?
Creating your job advert is the first, and arguably the most important, step in finding the perfect candidate to fill your vacancy. After all, a candidate who doesn’t see (or isn’t inspired by) your job advert will never reach the application stage, let alone an interview.
We’ll look at everything you need to remember when creating job listings. Understanding what is important when advertising a job vacancy and where to advertise jobs gives you a great head start in finding the new employee of your dreams.
What is important when advertising a job vacancy?
Creating an excellent job advert takes more than just a few bullet points explaining what you’re looking for and a broad salary range. Here are the key things to keep in mind.
1. Be clear about benefits, salaries, and perks
Let’s start out with the (hopefully) obvious. Any candidate will want to know what you are offering for salary, benefits, and perks.
We’ve talked before about how Generation Z are focused on a company’s mission, values, and how they make a difference. But they still need to put food on the table and they need to know about salary offerings as well as all the ways your company is working to create positive change. They need to know whether the position you’re offering is one that they can afford to take. And that holds true for candidates from every generation. Nobody wants to get through the hiring process only to realise the salary you’re offering is outside their expectations.
Being upfront about the financial aspects of a role is also reassuring to candidates beyond their finances. Job adverts without a salary range can feel unsettling to applicants. Jobs with salary ranges attract twice as many applicants as ones without.
Failing to provide information about salaries and benefits in your job advert lacks transparency, which hurts your employer branding. Instead, show applicants that you’re proud of the salary and benefits you’re offering by providing this information front and centre.
2. Highlight your company culture and brand
If you’re trying to find great new staff to develop your business, you’ve hopefully already been thinking about your employer branding. This is how you show prospective new team members how great it is to work for you.
You can’t assume potential applicants are already familiar with your employer branding or company culture. Instead, you need to find ways to showcase your culture in your job advert.
Devote a short section of your listing to tell job seekers who you are, including your values. If your culture prioritises wellbeing, highlight this by explaining the steps you take to look after your staff.
Where possible, “show, don’t tell”. Most employers will say that they value their workforce. Stand out by telling applicants the steps you take to promote welfare, whether it’s a large holiday allowance, free gym membership, or having an office dog who helps boost morale.
Check out our post on how to create and deliver a great employer brand to make sure you’ve got the kind of branding that will attract your ideal team members.
3. Use inclusive language
You want the best candidates, which means making your advert appeal to as many great people as possible. Inclusive language helps ensure that you’re attracting top talent from across the board.
Using inclusive language doesn’t just help you find the right person for this role. It also helps improve diversity within your organisation as a whole. As you’re hopefully already aware, improved diversity is essential for your business development.
Research from Deloitte suggests that companies can receive an 80% uplift in overall business performance by improving diversity, equity, and inclusion. If changing the language you use in your job adverts can contribute to this, it’s well worth the effort.
For detailed suggestions, check out our post on how to write inclusive job adverts.
To better understand the effect of DEI on your organisation, check out our post on the difference between diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And to see just how much being an inclusive employer can help you stand out, check out our post on the state of diversity and inclusion in the UK workplace.
4. Show off your organisation
If you want potential applicants to be excited about working for your organisation, show that you’re excited to be working there already.
Talk (briefly) about exciting projects or partnerships, or provide a link to the ‘latest news’ page of your website… and keep it updated!
Try to give potential applicants a real sense of what it’s like to work for your company on a day-to-day basis, highlighting any great opportunities or ways that a new team member can make a difference.
5. Include all the relevant info for your ideal recruits…
Thinking about the kind of person you want to recruit is key to designing your job advert to attract them. You’ve probably spent significant time and effort trying to understand your ideal customer. Make sure you do the same for your ideal employee.
Once you know what your dream applicant is looking for, show them you offer it.
If you’re looking for a recent graduate, for example, devote some time to understanding what Gen Z workers want. You can make a good start by reading our post on ten tips for recruiting Gen Z workers.
It isn’t usually difficult to include important info in your job advert. For example, you can highlight your DEI credentials by providing a link to your diversity and inclusion statement.
6. …but be careful about protected characteristics
Focusing on your ideal recruit can provide some much-needed focus in your job advert, but it’s important not to allow discrimination to creep in. Discrimination based on protected characteristics is illegal and gets in the way of finding great candidates.
You’re probably alert to overt discrimination, but it’s important to also be aware of different types of discrimination. Discrimination by perception can be particularly tough to spot.
Once you’ve produced the first draft of your job advert, re-read it with a critical eye for any potential discrimination or bias. For extra credit, ask several team members to do the same.
7. Letting people know how they can apply
The final thing to include in your job advert is explaining the application process, especially if it’s simple and easy to use. (Hint: It should be).
Candidates really appreciate knowing what to expect and being kept in the loop. Explaining your recruitment messaging strategy lets your dream recruit feel confident about making an application.
8. Where you advertise your jobs
Creating the perfect job advert isn’t the end of the story. You might have the most compelling, inclusive, exciting job advert ever. If you don’t advertise in the right places, you still won’t find the candidates you need.
Context is everything here. You wouldn’t advertise for the CEO of a Fortune 500 company on the noticeboard in your village hall, and you probably wouldn’t look for a voice actor in the pages of the Financial Times.
Understanding your ideal candidate allows you to focus on where you might find them. We have a great post on the five best job posting sites you need to know, but you can also be more creative in where you advertise.
Think about the skills you’re looking for and other groups who may also demonstrate their skills. Contact schools to encourage young people into your industry. Former military personnel are often hard-working and adaptable. Recently retired workers might be interested in a part-time role.
Small businesses will have to use different strategies from huge multinational corporations. For more ideas that might work with your business, check out our post on the six best tools to fill your open roles.
Keeping all this in mind will allow you to craft the perfect job advert and, hopefully, find your dream new hire.
Help with job adverts and so much more
If you’d like a little help, get in touch with the crooton team. We’re happy to cast an expert eye over your adverts to help you make the most of your recruitment efforts. And once you’ve crafted the perfect listings, we can help you post them to job boards, find the best candidates, and even schedule interviews!
Please call us today to find out about our rates and prices or to get a bespoke quote based on your specific requirements and let us help you calculate how much you could save working if you were to work with us.