What Your Job Ad Says About You
I have written and read so many job adverts over the years that I have almost become immune to phrases like “rockstar developer”. That’s a lie. I still throw up in my mouth a little every time I see that.
I’m going to walk you through some of the mistakes I regularly see in your job advert and hopefully this will help you write better job adverts that don’t make me want to break things.
Salary: Competitive
Saying your salary is ‘competitive’ is as effective as saying ‘we definitely pay more than minimum wage.’ Throughout my career, I have yet to come across a single, justifiable excuse for not displaying a reasonable salary range on a job advert. Some of the excuses that I often come up against are worth sharing though:
Excuse: I’m worried what the existing team will think if they see that the salary is higher than theirs.
Solution: Pay your team fairly.
Excuse: If we put a range, applicants are only going to ask for the top end of that range.
Solution: Most of them won’t but pay them that anyway if they are really good.
Excuse: What if our competitors see what we’re paying and start offering even more?
Solution: If they can afford to do that, they are probably paying more than you already.
Be upfront about your pay to show respect for the time job applicants are spending on your vacancy.
Must have 5+ years of experience in X
In your head: Well our team would really benefit from having someone with significant, commercial experience with X so lets make sure that people reading this advert understand that we need someone who can bring that level of experience to the company.
In the candidates head: Well I have spent the past four years doing X at an enormous scale and could probably add an incredible amount of value to this team but they clearly want someone way more experienced than me so let’s move on to the next ad.
Please stop specifying a minimum number of years of experience. I have yet to see a single example where X number of years is more applicable than the context of the applicants experience. Describe what success looks like in the first 12 months rather than arbitrary experience requirements.
You Are Not Writing a Novel
A report by TheLadders suggests it takes people 49.7 seconds to determine if a job is a good fit. According to Indeed, job adverts that are between 700 and 2,000 words get, on average, 30% more applications. You don’t need an entire company history; provide a brief overview and link to more details elsewhere. In short, skip the fluff and get to the point.
Requirements — No Longer Required
The most significant improvement you can make to how your job is perceived by potential applicants is to eliminate your lengthy requirements and instead focus on what the right person will be doing during the first twelve months on the job.
If you are transparent and specific about the type of work a person will be expected to do, the people who will apply for the role are those that feel they are capable of doing that job well, regardless of how much or how little experience they really have.
Interview process or The Hunger Games?
Tell people what your interview process looks like and where possible, give them an idea of how long it typically takes you to complete your hiring process.
Any additional context you can provide upfront about what a person can expect if they were to work for your company is going to not only generate more interest, but it’s also going to improve the likelihood of you finding the right person for your team.
Keeping in mind the earlier advice about not writing a novel, provide the context in the form of external links. Share photos of the office environment and share links to blog posts written by your existing team.
Ask for Feedback!
Ask your existing team for feedback before you publish your job. Ask them for their perspective. Ask them if they feel the advert is appropriately representative of the work they do and the environment they are in.
Ask applicants what they liked and didn’t like about the job advert. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new formats, new language and new ideas.