This is a (very long – but worth it) guest post from the MD of Bubblejobs.co.uk about the rights and wrongs of writing job adverts.
Ok, I’m going to have a bit of a moan here….it might not be pretty….but I think it’s necessary.
As you can imagine, when you run a job board, you get to see a lot of job adverts, and I mean a LOT!! It becomes part of your daily life and, to be honest, it can get a bit depressing because the majority are quite frankly…utter rubbish. It’s true and I’ve seen so many bad adverts that I felt compelled write about it and get it off my chest.
But before I get stuck into my rant, here’s my take on how you can categorise all the job adverts out there. Basically they fall into 3 categories:
The 007 – Very slick, very polished. Smart, well presented, engaging, targeted, interesting, attractive (depends which Bond you’re talking about) well written, grammatically correct and informative.
This type of advert is generally written by a recruitment advertising and communications agency or a professional copywriter. It’s been written by someone who knows advertising and someone who knows how to attract a certain type of audience. The adverts are written in a style and tone which reflect the culture and ethos of the employer and they “sell the job” really well. People want to apply to job adverts like these.
The Alfie Moon – Yes our friend Alfie is very likeable, he doesn’t offend anyone. He’s OK, occasionally engaging, but he wears loud shirts, doesn’t have the greatest grasp of the Queen’s English and isn’t exactly a looker. He’s charming but at the same time a bit boring. He’s got some good points and he’s got some bad points. He’s definitely one of life’s triers but at the end of the day he’s just a normal, ordinary guy.
This type of advert is often written by employers, usually by HR Managers who are managing their recruitment directly. They care about their company, they want their business to attract the right talent and they’ve worked hard to get that advertising budget, so they’re going to give it their best shot. Consequently these adverts are informative, (sometimes a bit too informative) and lengthy. They describe a lot of the elements of the position but often a lot of HR lingo ends up in the content. They often take the form of a job spec that’s been dressed up a bit, (the loud shirt) and whilst they contain some good stuff, they’re not particularly attractive or engaging. So they’re just a bit ‘down the middle’ and ordinary but at the same time, you can tell someone’s put some effort into them.
The Frank Gallagher – Yep you guessed it, Frank represents all the bad job adverts out there. They’re shabby, look awful, they’re useless and they’re downright shameful. Most of all, they’re lazy!
Yes, this type of job advert takes the form of a cut ‘n’ pasted, unformatted job spec or even worse just a couple of lines of nonsense in the vain hope that someone might be desperate enough to apply for the position being advertised. There’s not much to say about the Frank Gallagher except for one important thing; these types of adverts form the MAJORITY of adverts listed on job boards.
And guess what? (here we go….controversy alert!) the people behind most of our Frank Gallaghers are……RECRUITERS!
Now before anyone gets the hump or feels ‘outraged’ by that statement, I do appreciate that it can be difficult, (I’m actually from a recruitment background myself so I’ve been there). You have loads of clients and loads of vacancies you’re managing. There’s pressure to get your advert out there, source candidates as quickly as you can, filter CVs and get them into your client before your competitors. How can you possibly do anything else other than get that advert on those job boards pronto? Competition is fierce and time is money blah blah blah. I know all that.
What winds me up is that all too often when I speak with my colleagues in the recruitment world you hear the same old complaints. “Job boards are cr*p” or “I didn’t get any decent applications”, “I’m just not getting any apps” etc etc.
Yes there are some rubbish job boards out there, I’m not denying it. Some just don’t have the coverage, the SEO or the audience reach to throw the net out far enough and focus enough eyeballs on that dream job opportunity. But it’s all too easy to blame everyone else sometimes and perhaps the problem lies much closer to home.
In the UK last year we spent nearly £790m on online recruitment advertising……that’s a lot of job adverts. With the fierce competition in the market there’s a high probability that the vacancy you’re advertising is also being advertised by some of your closest competitors. You’re all in a race to get the right CV to your client as quickly as possible to stand a chance of getting that all important placement fee.
So my question is….how are you going to win that particular race? As I hinted a little earlier, the way the industry seems to think is that it all comes down to ‘who advertises first…. wins’. Well, that’s not the case. I’ve heard the argument that it’s all a bit of a lottery and in fact it comes down to which candidate is reading which advert on which job board and it’s as simple as that. Well the fact is it isn’t that simple. There may be an element of truth in there somewhere but I would argue that you can vastly improve your chances. And one of the most effective ways of doing that is…..wait for it…….by writing a decent advert in the first place!
Take this scenario. You and five of your competitors have all received the latest spec from that ‘marquee client’. The clock starts ticking. You log in into your job board multi-posting account, and you cut and paste that spec straight in there, hit post and hey presto your job goes live, the stress levels go up and you’re there, monitoring your inbox, clicking ‘send and receive’ every 15 seconds just waiting for that dream CV to pop up there.
Now think about it. If all of you have done the same thing, that could be the same spec, posted on 100s of different boards, so what makes your advert different?……Nothing!!! And what’s worse, you’re totally wasting some of that £790m by advertising complete cr*p! And bad adverts only attract bad applications or worse still, no applications at all. Just imagine, if 50% of job adverts are duplicates or complete rubbish then collectively, we blew nearly £400m last year….oops!, and I thing 50% is being very kind.
Here’s another thing to consider before laying all the blame at a job board’s door. What exactly does a job board do? What function does it perform in the recruitment process? Yes, that’s right, what it says on the tin; it’s the shop window, the online classifieds column where jobs are posted and where job seekers stop by to take a look at the vacancies available. Job boards have a responsibility to ensure their site is as visible and attractive as possible to their target audience. They have to provide an easy to use platform making it as simple as possible for job seekers to search and browse.
Job boards are there to get VIEWS on a job; they are there to lead the horse to the water. What job boards can’t do, (because they don’t play the part of a recruiter) is make someone APPLY for a job or make that horse drink. So where’s the key link in the chain? Yep, the good old JOB ADVERT. Yes the job advert is the conduit between the VIEW and the APPLY element in the process, the key to turning a PASSIVE job seeker into an ACTIVE candidate.
I’d argue therefore that the humble job advert is critical to the success of this part of the process. A well written, engaging advert which informs the job seeker about the responsibilities of a role, who it’s for, where it’s based and gives an insight into the employer brand and culture is likely to entice the job seeker; drawing them in and persuading them that this might actually be the opportunity they’ve been looking for all along.
Still reading this? Great. In an effort to prove a point here’s an example of a good and a bad job advert I’ve seen our very own Bubble Jobs recently:
007
PPC Executive
XXXXXXXX is the nation’s favourite leisure and travel website, attracting more than 1.65 million visitors every week. Whether you want to spend your free time relaxing on a spa break, taking in a top West End musical or jetting off to sunnier climes, lastminute.com is your go-to site. The past 12 months have been a whirlwind of activity and now we’re looking for the top talent in the country to join our team.
To coincide with our growth plans for 2012 we’re looking for a new PPC Executive to join our successful PPC team in London. Ambitious, highly motivated, enthusiastic – yes, the successful candidate must tick all the standard boxes but we’re also looking for someone who can think ‘outside the box’ and take our PPC campaigns to the next level. We want someone who can not only exceed our expectations once but time and time again.
In short, you’ll be responsible for the trafficking, bid management and optimisation of multiple PPC campaigns and assisting with drive cycle and promotional PPC plans for local marketing teams. You’ll also need to help plan, develop and deliver deliverables for our Commercial and Marketing teams both in the UK and in Europe – oh, and you’ll need to address campaign performance issues to the PPC team leader too.
We don’t want you to be a PPC ‘guru’ as such but we do want you to be a key part of the PPC team – providing cover where needed and sharing your PPC knowledge with other members of the team. You’ll also need to follow best PPC practice at all time so you’ll need to be up to date on the latest PPC trends and product updates at all times.
In terms of personality, we’re searching for someone who has a real eye for detail, is a proactive team player, is highly numerate and has a real passion for all things Web. We also want someone who has a Maths or e-commerce degree and someone who’s a bit of an Excel geek. As an added bonus our new PPC Executive would also be GAP qualified, have a basic understanding of online/digital marketing and have a few additional languages under their belt such as French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian or Dutch.
When it comes to experience, we don’t necessarily need someone that has PPC campaign management experience – instead we’re happy to take someone that’s a whizz when it comes to Excel, is highly numerate and that’s prepared to commit to developing their PPC campaign management experience through intensive interval training programmes such as the Google AdWords Certification programme. We want someone that wants to learn and has the desire and drive to make a real difference when it comes to meeting the profitability targets of our pay-per-click campaigns.
Think we’ve just described you to a ‘T’? Then we want to hear from you! Click on that ‘Apply’ button now to send your CV direct to the recruitment team.
This advert:
• Tells a story (informative)
• Has detail (useful)
• Is catchy and different (unique)
• Gives an insight into the company culture (important)
• Is full of keywords (SEO)
Frank Gallagher
Client: A well established company
Job: Test Analyst
Purpose:
– Assist in the preparation of tests cases, plans and reports
– Ensure software release with high accuracy and quality
– Prepare a test planning and test scripts
– Demonstrate business condition of tests and expected results
– Provide feed-back to the development team
– Ensure quality and development delays
– Provide a feedback to the Software Development Manager
Profile:
– Proven strong experience of tests
– Very good knowledge of structured test methods and processes
– Good skills with HP Quality Center Testing tools
– Experience in Software Development a plus
Does your profile match? Then send your Resume!
This advert:
• Need I say more?
Ok, enough negativity now. You get my point and hopefully you can agree with some elements. So how do you write a good job advert that won’t take all the time in the world? Well here are some tips I’ve put together:
Keywords
It’s important to ensure your job advert has the right keywords relating to the job. The right keywords are important not only because it’s what a job seeker uses when searching for jobs but it’s also what search engines use to index jobs, (more on that later). The most important place to have your keywords right is obviously the job title. When choosing your keywords, try to think like a job seeker and imagine what they’re going to type into the search box on a job board. Are they going to search for Online Storefront Operations Executive (that’s a real job title posted by a client by the way) or are they going to search for Ecommerce Executive jobs?
Location, Qualifications and Skills
I know it sounds obvious but to ensure people looking for Social Media Manager jobs in London end up looking at your Social Media Manager job in London that you’re advertising, then make reference to London in the job advert. The same goes for specific qualifications and accreditations. More and more job seekers are searching using terms like PRINCE2, ITIL and SCRUM.
Application Process
Another obvious one, but you’d be surprised how many adverts actually tell the job seeker how to apply. If you’re redirecting them to an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) make sure you include the right link!
Uniqueness (for SEO)
Every job advert posted on every job board should get indexed by the major search engines like Google. For the uninitiated, Google keeps tightening up the rules and algorithms which it uses to determine where things are ranked in its search engine results or SERPs. The most important rule is that your content must be unique. So if you take the time to write an original advert then it’s likely to be indexed better and ranked higher than all those cut ‘n’ pasted specs, (remember the earlier scenario?). It’s important to remember that job seekers don’t just search for jobs on job boards. Most of the time they simply hop onto Google, type Web Developer Jobs in Sussex and hit the search button. If you’ve got an original advert with those keywords referred to then there’s a good chance your little beauty will appear way higher in the search results.
Tone and Style
The way hat your advert is written can send a powerful message to the job seeker. If it’s clear that no effort has been put in and it’s just a load of bullet points, what does that say about your business and the relationship you have with your client? Do you really know them? Is it even a real job opportunity? Is it worth applying for? If you write the advert in a tone and style which reflects the kind of business your client has then it sounds more genuine, like you have a proper relationship and that the job you are advertising is a bonafide vacancy. Tone and style can also reflect the culture of the business, (e.g. a fast growing, dynamic online start-up) and it can really help to set the opportunity apart from others.
Content
This is perhaps the most important. Remember, at the end of the day, this is supposed to be an ADVERT. It’s not a job spec, that’s what you attach along with the ad. It’s a great opportunity to be creative, different and to have a bit of fun. It’s an opportunity to really ‘SELL’ the opportunity to people, to grasp their attention, to draw them in and to convince them that they should apply or find out more.
So there you go, I finally got it off my chest. A bit of a long rant I know and if you’ve made it to the end then you deserve a medal. The point is, the importance of job adverts is often overlooked. They play a major part in the talent attraction process and are often the ‘first impression’ given about a job or your client. It’s a bit like looking for that dream CV in a whole pile of applications, (see some of my other blogs if you dare). You’re looking for something that stands out from the crowd and if your advert is unique, attention grabbing, informative and sells the position to the audience, the chances are you’re going to get an improvement in the quality of applications.
So the next time you feel that “job boards are all cr*p!” moan brewing or you’re hastily looking around for yet another online advertising outlet to spend some of that £790m on, have a look at your job advert and ask yourself, “Would I apply for this?”
I know it can take a little more time, but surely that’s got to be better than sitting there pulling your hair out whilst your checking your inbox? If you really don’t think you have the time, why not have a look and see if any job boards offer copywriting services, we do here at Bubble Jobs, (oh come on! after a blog this length I think I deserve to include a little plug).
Why not have a go with a couple of your latest vacancies and see if it makes a difference? You never know, you might enjoy it, a bit of creative writing can be quite therapeutic you know.
Let me know how you get on
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