A job advert is the first step in your recruitment process. A good advert lays the foundation for your entire recruitment strategy. It doesn’t matter how many job boards you post to or the amazing benefits you may have; if you can’t write an attractive job advert that compels a candidate to submit their application, you’re wasting time and money.
In this post, I will break down my step-by-step guide to writing a blimin’ fantastic job advert that will attract the most RELEVANT candidates to your role. I also have a free job advert template that goes hand in hand with this guide, which you can download here.
What Is a Job Advert?
A job advert works like any other advert. But rather than an advert for a can of Coke, a new pair of jeans or a fancy restaurant. It is an advert for your job vacancy.
Your job advert is then uploaded to a job board or your careers page and used to ‘sell’ your position and company to potential applicants. Just as Levi uses ads to sell its jeans to consumers, your advert needs to sell your opportunity to candidates, encouraging them to buy into your offering. Rather than clicking ‘buy,’ they press ‘apply.’
A job advert is NOT a long-winded (and often dull) job description. It should be short and snappy, aiming to intrigue and excite the right candidate to want to learn more and put themselves forward. Once a candidate has submitted their application, you can share a more formal, longer job description before their first interview.
How to Get Started
Before putting pen to paper, you need to spend some time identifying exactly what role you are hiring for. Ensure you liaise with all the stakeholders involved in the hire – the Hiring Managers and HR at a minimum. In full-service restaurant environments, recruitment often involves operational leaders, HR teams, and external specialists to ensure the right fit across both front- and back-of-house roles. It is often surprising how differently people view a position and what it entails.
List the primary responsibilities and describe your ideal candidate. This will form the foundation of your job advert.
How to Write a Great Job Advert
If you have ever studied marketing, you will know marketers write their adverts with just one buyer in mind. Just one. And this is their ideal buyer – and their advert speaks directly to them. It is just as important to repel people who are not suitable for your product (or the job in the job advert analogy) as it is to attract the right buyers.
Why? You can’t speak to everyone. And particularly when recruiting, you don’t want to – the last thing you want is to receive and sift through 100s of irrelevant candidates.
You want the right candidate to apply for your role, so we have to speak to them directly.
How do they talk? What motivates them? What job title would they be used to? What skills and experiences of theirs would you value?
Now start there. You write your advert with your dream candidate in mind, using all the sales know-how you can muster. This is your opportunity to sell your employer brand, position, and stand out against other similar roles on the market.
Download my free job template here to get started.
First, add the key information about your role, such as the job title, location, salary, and working pattern. Then, give a brief introduction to the position and its overarching purpose. Remember, the first 250 characters are the most important, as this is what the candidate will see in a long list of job adverts. These words must intrigue and excite the candidate enough to compel them to click on your advert and read more.
Top tip: Use a searchable job title for your job advert. Too often, I have seen employers use obscure (or fancy) job titles that are only recognised within their organisation. A job advert needs to be found in our SEO-driven world. Even if you have written the best job advert in the world, if you use a job title no one outside your organisation has heard of, it will never get picked up in searches.
Now comes the key responsibilities section. Refer to your initial list and add the top 4-5, no more, so we don’t bore the reader. You can send a more detailed job description before their interview.
Next, it is time to envisage your dream candidate and what skills and experience you want them to have. Now, I hate to break it to you, but your perfect candidate probably doesn’t exist. So you want to attract people who are 70-80% of the way toward what you are looking for, with the POTENTIAL to learn the rest. Refer to your list and split the candidate specification into must-haves and nice-to-haves.
Keep the must-haves – if, for example, your role requires a specific qualification, there is no point in omitting that from your advert and receiving applicants without it. That wastes everyone’s time, and I would question whether you need to add all the nice-to-haves.
Why? Several studies show that most women will apply for a role only if they meet 100% of the criteria (men, about 50%). Therefore, if you want a diverse and gender-balanced talent pool to choose from, frankly, the fewer requirements you add, the better. And remember – your perfect candidate doesn’t exist, but a left-field option with the POTENTIAL to do a fantastic job may be just what you are looking for, and you don’t want to close yourself off to these applicants completely.
Before we get to the call to action, you need to add your company benefits (not all of them – just the main ones) and reiterate why your company is such a big deal and why a candidate would want to work there.
A Call to Action
What do all excellent adverts have? That’s right – a call to action.
Imagine your ideal candidate finds your job advert, reads it, and thinks, ‘Yep, I like the sound of this and want to explore this role further.’ But they get to the end, and you have left them hanging. Nadda. They are thinking, hang on, what do they want me to do? Do I apply? How? Is there a deadline? Have I missed it?
Therefore, every job advert must close with a clear call to action. And the best adverts close with a call to action that creates a sense of urgency.
You don’t want your dream candidate to close their laptop after reading your job advert, thinking, ‘Oooo – I like the sound of that, I’ll come back and apply tomorrow’. In many instances, life takes over, and they forget. You want them so excited about your position that they apply there and then.
A good call to action that prompts a candidate to apply straightaway could read as follows:
‘This role is interviewing shortly. We would LOVE to receive your application, so if you would like to be considered, please submit your application ASAP using the Apply Now button below.’
So, there you have it – my complete guide on how to write a quality job advert to attract your dream candidate to your next job vacancy. Download my free job advert template to put these tips into action before you write your next advert, and let me know how you get on. I can’t wait to hear that you are now effortlessly attracting and hiring your dream candidates.
Want more tips on becoming an employer of choice in a candidate-driven market? Then check out this replay of a LinkedIn Live I had with Recruitment Expert Martin Drake, who offers advice about what companies should do to attract talent in today’s job market.