One hiring secret to transform your recruitment

1 - What is the secret?
2 - The number 1 rule for a good job advert?
3 - Know your audience
4 - Live and breathe your positive message

What is the secret? 

Surely there is no such thing as a silver bullet for solving recruitment challenges? True, but I am all for a bullet-proof shoe, given how often organisations shoot themselves in the foot with woeful job adverts. 

Unambiguous adverts are the secret to transforming your recruitment. It's crucial for attracting quality and quantity. But what do we mean by ambiguous? And how can this quick fix help you?

For anybody that’s recruiting this year, we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of candidates applying for jobs. According to the ONS in June 2022 – the UK employment rate is now at about 75.6% - an increase even on May. The unemployment rate is just 3.8%.  Jobtrain’s own market trends report found a 39% rise in vacancies advertised this year, but the average number of applicants per vacancy halved.

A well-written job advert could increase your candidate reach by up to 200%! Two-or-three sentence job specifications aren’t going to peak anybody’s interest, but that doesn’t mean you should over-stuff your ad and waffle! You need to educate your internal team on what a great job advert looks like so you can increase your clickthrough rate – thinking about recruitment the same way a marketeer would think about writing for a website.

The number 1 rule for a good job advert 

Even though you’re starting to write lots of information to arm candidates with the knowledge to show off their best selves, there’s a pitfall you might trip into. That pitfall is treating a job advert like a job description. 

The two are very different! A job advert is salesy, it’s trying to bring people in. A job description is where the disclaimers should be, where the full list of responsibilities live. A job advert should have images and videos – which increases candidate applications by up 42%! Our research shows it improves quality, with 2 to 3 times more candidates proceeding to interview post-screening. A job description should have all of the necessary information about your workplace, such as the address with a postcode etc. 

Know your audience

Jobtrain’s market research – Candidata – surveyed 10,000 candidates in the first half of this year.    

• 50% of applicants are moving for career change or promotion opportunities. Only 20% are job hunting due to unemployment 
• 91% of applicants say an organisation’s policies and practices with regards to ED&I  is an important factor in choosing to apply. 
• 48% of those surveyed said home or flexible working was important or very important to them when choosing their next job.This is especially appealing to the Generation Z workers recently entering the marketplace’s entry level positions, who crave variety and flexibility and like a ‘side-hustle’. 

What do you know about your Candidates? And how do they perceive your organisation? Try googling for comments or looking at comments on Glassdoor, Facebook, Reddit or LinkedIn.

Live and breathe your positive message 

Give the audience what they want – make sure your advert gives them great insights and examples, but you must be able to demonstrate it. Candidates will see through empty claims, and worse you may increase turnover over new hires if they find the organisation doesn’t live up to the advert.

• Better adverts, not more! Focus on promoting brand, employee benefits, and inclusivity. The salary needs to be stated and consider inflation and competition before doing so.
• Embrace candidates’ desires for flexible and home working. Use hybrid working to make attracting candidates easier and your business operations more flexible.
• Take real actions to facilitate diverse applications, rather than just pictures or statements.

• Succession plan and facilitate more internal promotion, training and development. It will fill future gaps, and if word gets out it will attract external applicants looking for an employer that offers good promotion opportunities.

Starting along these lines will give you a good basis for great job adverts, and starting to build an Employer Value Proposition – EVP for short. For more details and examples of good and bad adverts click here.