It goes without saying that to get the best applicants your job advert has to be good. Of course this means that it has to be persuasive, engaging, and attractive to your ideal candidate. But in order to win hearts and minds, it first has to be visible.
At Adzuna we’ve taken a look at our data and noticed that a significant number of employers who post job ads forget some of the simple rules of writing awesome ads, getting them seen and making them impossible for dream candidates to walk away from.
Based on our extensive expertise in the job market, Team Adzuna have compiled our top tips to make sure that first of all, your advert is seen, and secondly that you’ve written the best possible ad.
Tip 1: Location, location, location
We’re not suggesting you move office in order to attract the right people, don’t worry! Instead, this is a surprisingly simple tip – make sure you have a location listed, and one that is accurate and specific.
On Adzuna.co.uk, out of over 1 million live ads, a surprisingly high 111,677 just had “UK” as a location. That’s almost 10% of all ads – a pretty significant amount!
By listing a geographically diverse location, many employers think they will appear in more searches and appeal to more candidates – but strangely the opposite is true. Job search technology today is smarter than ever, and is powered by relevance – matching local candidates to local jobs. In fact, the clever tech behind job search engines and job boards means vacancies with very precise locations, appear in searches for not just that place, but the region it’s in, as well as the UK.
Case in point:
Adzuna is based in Fulham. When we post our own jobs they will appear in searches for Fulham, South West London, London, and the UK. This means we will maximise the number of searches that we will appear in. Clever, huh?
By listing just the UK, you will only be found when people search specifically for nationwide roles, putting your your ad in close competition with up to a million others!
On top of this, with the commute being such an important factor when selecting a job, you are making it harder for the right candidates to find you. With our advanced search features, users can also search for jobs within a certain radius, so Adzuna jobs would also appear for searches for the areas of London next to us.
In short, if you want people to find you, you have to tell them where you are. Simple!
Tip 2: It’s all about the money
Again, we’re not suggesting you to increase advertised salaries beyond your budget! Our advice is simply that it’s important to be as open with potential employees as possible and tell them what they can expect to be compensated. Of the live jobs on our site, nearly a third didn’t have a salary.
Within a competitive job market, consumers are much more likely to begin applying for a job where they know what they’re going to get. That doesn’t mean that they will always go for a job with a higher salary – those roles tend going to attract heavy competition.
In fact, jobs with salaries below £25,000 generally get a higher click-through rate (CTR) than jobs between £25,000-£65,000, so a low salary does not necessarily mean low performance!
Most people have a sense of their own value, and will try and find a job that matches their expectations. We even help candidates understand their value with our ValueMyCV tool, to help them apply for jobs at the right level for them.
If candidates don’t know what to expect from your job, you may lose out on potential superstars who assume it is not the right match for them.
If you’re not entirely sure what salary you should be putting down, then why not take a look at our Salary Stats Center. We analyse all the jobs across the UK so you can see what the average salary for that role is in your local area.
Tip 3: The right title and category
If you want your job advert to be found, then you need to make sure that your job title is something that people will search for. While it can be tempting to try and stand out from the crowd by calling your team “Ninjas”, “Gurus”, or “Jedi”, the likelihood that people will search that term is quite low. If you can copy industry standard job titles, you will avoid becoming lost in searches.
Even if you have a more standardised job title, you should also ensure that you have categorised it properly. Rather than searching, some jobseekers will instead browse by job category, from “Accounting and Finance” to “Scientific and QA”.
Nearly 20% of jobs on our site were not added to a category. Again, this limits the number of people who might see your advert and might mean you are missing out on great candidates. Categorise carefully and you are on your way to successfully filling your role.
Tip 4: Considering your audience
If you write a lot of job adverts, you probably have heard this a lot from your marketing department – if you can put yourself in the shoes of an ideal candidate, you can write a job description that gets right to the heart of what they want and truly appeals to them.
How you communicate the awesome things about your organisation will differ if you are seeking newly qualified staff, to if you are hunting a seasoned leader to drive your business to a new level. For the former, a focus on the opportunities to learn and to develop skills could work well, whereas for senior team members you would want to focus on the need for leadership.
As well as age and seniority, you might want to consider the characteristics that a good candidate would have. Are you hoping for a number-crunching data guru, a superstar sales person with real drive, or a creative wordsmith you can tell the world about your company? They all want to hear different things – which is why one size fit all job ads simply don’t work.
Tip 5: Selling your company
This may be the first time that a potential candidate has heard of your company, and so it’s important to explain why working for your company is great. Many adverts we looked at while researching this article focused on the pay, hours, and not much else.
The culture of a company can be as important to a candidate as all of those things. And ultimately you want to attract candidates who are going to fit in and succeed at your company.
What is the office environment like? Is it a sociable? Is there lots of flexibility or autonomy? Candidates look for an environment that fits their style, and by being upfront, it can help avoid a mismatch!
Think about why you like working where you do. If you’re stuck for ideas, ask colleagues – you may even find out a benefit you didn’t know existed before!
Tip 6: Putting it all together
A good job ad should ultimately be a reflection of the job, and should include all the important information a candidate would want to know. From the basics like where the job is based and how much it pays, up to what it’s like working for your company, and beyond to what the successful candidate’s roles and responsibilities are.
The key is to really put yourself in the candidate’s shoes and make sure you are putting everything there that they would want to know.
Feeling confident to do your own job ad now? You can post ads for free on our site here.