What information should you, as an employer, prioritise when writing an advert for your latest vacancy? Since candidate attraction is key, we decided to carry out some research.
Red Snapper surveyed a group of candidates from our network. We asked what makes the difference between an attractive recruitment process or otherwise.
What we found is hardly surprising. Core information about the practicality’s of the role is far more important to a candidate than business information, at least initially.
From this recent data, we can see the most important factor is location. According to our survey, candidates like to know where exactly the potential job is based. Considering many candidates have responsibilities which would be impacted depending on their residence and working location.
We learned in order to enhance attractiveness of a job advert, location and salary need to be evidently clear, while contract duration and ease of application are less important. Salary often can be difficult to display as it may depend on the seniority and experience of the candidate. One alternative is to include a salary range, but this possesses issues as all candidates will be expecting salaries closer to the higher end of the scale. Therefore, if there is some reservation to disclosing the salary, a base could be helpful, as could an average, ball-park figure. Candidates moving roles are likely to do so for a retention of their current salary or an increase. Being transparent with regards to pay and bonus schemes makes an employer more trustworthy and can quickly diminish applications from candidates unlikely to accept an offer. It is also important not to over promise on benefits and make too much effort to sell benefits as a core attraction. Candidates purely motivated by pay may only be applying to adverts like this for material means, rather than a commitment to benefiting the organisation.
There are a few things we teach our consultants when composing a job advert: keep it brief, keep it neat and keep it interesting.
First things first, it’s important to ensure the job advert isn’t too brief or too lengthy – either one could deter a potential candidate. We recommend a short paragraph outlining the job description, some bullet points stating the core responsibilities and some bullet points outlining the job role requirements.
When it comes to writing the content, leave out the horribly generic phrases such as ‘excellent team player’ or ‘individual with a can-do attitude!’. Hopefully anyone spending time to apply for the role will already possess these qualities, and if they manage to make it to interview stage then you can judge for yourself. Let’s be honest, as we mentioned in our previous article, phrases like these just make the job seem insincere.
It seems there’s an art to crafting a perfectly written job advert, but it’s certainly not impossible. It can be a time consuming process but it’s definitely worth it. It is an opportunity to sell the role you have on offer and encourage the right candidate to apply.
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