Firstly I have to apologise. I would like to apologise to all of my previous clients over the past 8 years that I have given advice to, on how to write an online job ad. I would also like to apologise on behalf of all of the job boards that are spewing out the same information day in day out on how to write the perfect job ad to attract candidates. Over those 8 years I towed the company line and gave the advice which for all intensive purposes is sound. The Internet allowed us to write as much as we want and we put a framework around it.
Whilst I never led any of my clients astray, or told them something that wasn’t beneficial, that framework is now broken. Today’s internet job ads are clones of each other and if they are not, then there is nothing in the ad itself that tells you anything about what the job actually is (yes I can see you nodding your heads candidates)
Today, this is how it roughly goes.
1. Job Title – Write something that is the ACTUAL job title or something that is along the lines of the job title but catchy.
2. Short Description – Think 140-160 characters depending on the job board, those who use Twitter should be getting the best out of this now. While I’m on it why don’t job boards tweet all short descriptions into relevant silo’s. Who is going to be first to jump on that, or has someone already, if so, speak up, we want to hear the results.
3. Job Ad……………………
This is where my frustration begins. Ok, so I was trained as a recruiter a couple of moons ago, that a good job ad consisted of 4-5 paragraphs. 1. Introduction of the company. 2. Explanation of the job title and who you will report to, team structure etc. 3. Overview of job role and purpose. 4. Qualifications and maybe just maybe salary. 5. Please Please Please Apply now.
The problem is, it is so structured, and so drummed into the minds of advertisers that seek professional help from the job boards, that all creativity has gone out the window. Where has the every day language and realism gone, it seems now that job ads are just rehashed over and over again, and not just from recruiters, who are constantly doing it, but corporate’s as well.
And it’s not just me, Thomas Shaw from Recruitment Directory has noticed as well and highlighted these 2 great ads on http://shar.es/aaPMp. Great ingenuity.
So who is to blame? Do we blame the job boards, who over the last 10 years have not redefined and re-developed more functionality for job postings other then some fancy imagery (god knows video would add a wonderful dimension to each job, a 1 1/2 min advertisement from HR or the hiring manager showing you not only is this job real but we have a personality, flair and culture);
Or do we blame ourselves, for sticking to this format so rigidly, that we have now no other way of writing an ad. Print was restrictive due to cost and space. The Internet has far more capabilities to advertise, why has it not developed?
I hear every day that recruiters and corporates are swamped with applications. Most of the time the candidate doesn’t even know what it is that they are applying for, the ad is written that vaguely. We can’t blame them, every job ad sounds and looks the same, why not apply to them all?
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On the same subject, you may be interested in my latest blog….
http://alasdairdmurraycopywriter.co.uk/Nov09blog.aspx
I think we have just all lost our “common touch”. Most job ads are boring
Lets have some fun and give the candidate some joy while they read our add.
Have a look at this example “Please keep in mind that all resumes are similar and to ensure your covering letter is not. Please use the words Unicycle, Squirrel and Nuts in your covering letter.” http://jobadder.com/blog/2009/10/01/Dear-Squirrel-I-attach-my-nuts-in-support-of-this-unicycle.aspx
This is a great post and a very relevant topic as we enter 2010 when companies and recruiters will be in competition more solidly for talent. I suspect that everyone can share some of the blame for the dull ads; however the person writing the ad clearly has to accept the majority of the blame. Most rush to put up an ad, re-hashing a similar and that is that. Perhaps we need job ad writing standards? What is and is not acceptable. There is a vast array of information available freely on how to improve your job ad writing skills, however very few people are interested in doing such a thing. Good job ad writing, like any good writing requires a bit of time and commitment and those involved in recruiting often don’t see value in spending the time at the front end of the process. It is too their detriment though, if more time was spent upfront getting the brief and job ad right, then you are far more likely to attract the right candidates as any good recruiter will tell you.
I write recruitment copy (amongst other things) for a living and thankfully there are still people out there that are willing to pay a minimal fee for a decent bit of copy. Trouble is there are thousands who aren’t. Given that rec cons make anywhere between 15-25% of first year salary on a placement you would think that a cost that equates to less than 1% of that fee could be absorbed in the pursuit of quality of online content. As I keep telling rec cons, when you advertise you are not just advertising a job, you are advertising your services, you are making a corporate statement, you are putting yourself in the shop window. Bad copy and even worse follow up to applicants can only lead to less business in the long run.
Alasdair, I think part of the problem also, is it is far easier to re-post something that has been written before and change a few words, and most, not all, recruiters don’t have the skills to get a solid brief from the client, I don’t just mean skills, education etc, I mean the personality traits, what makes your best person in the company so good type questions. The easy road is far simpler and the consultants themselves do no thing that “bigger picture” in terms of company perception.
Yes, it’s easier to regurgitate something that got a response before, but what sort of response from what sort of applicant? As I say, every time an organisation advertises it is not only an ad for a job, it is a statement about them as a company. So many rec cons particularly seem oblivious to that fact. They probalby pay thousands for their websites and PR yet when it comes to the lifeblood of their business…. i.e. the job posts that will drive their database and gain them a reputation as a decent outfit to deal with, they invest precious little time or money in it, thinking instead that just rehashing the same tired old copy will do. Quite amazing really.
One note to add, ambiguous job titles are very problematic. Many times they do not give you an indication what it actually is. I applied for one, posted on a job board and the title was “Financial Services Representative”. Ok, I finally found out what it was after starting the application process based on the pay scale. Wrong on my part probably but I do have financial services background. How hard could it be? It was actually a position of an insurance salesman. Why don’t companies just say what it is and save us unemployed people some headaches. It’s frustrating enough looking for work.
Hi! Justin Hillier,
I enjoyed reading your articles. Great articles. The candidate should stand out from the crowd and not stick to boring standard format and submit the application.
Justin, I couldn’t agree more. Good adverts take time to write and most agencies still adopt a lineage mentality or simply cut and paste the client’s JD.
I regularly spend between 60 and 90 minutes writing an advert and take real care to engender intrigue and generate interest in order to provoke an application.
What infuriates me is when I find other agencies using my ad copy – or significant chunks of my adverts – verbatim. This has happened to me 4 times this year and on the last occasion I phoned the “consultant” to ask her to take it down. Instead I received a barrage of abuse focused on my arrogance and her belief that the internet was a free for all. She was adamant that she was too busy and too successful a recruiter to have the time to write her own ad copy. Quite amazing really!
Simon – have seen that quite a bit – a consultant from a respected agency cutting and pasting other recruiters ads – when we give our consultants KPIs for Interviews, Client visits, New Jobs, Ads posted and CVs sent out, guess what. THEY ACHIEVE THEM – quantity is easy. A good recruiter will measure utilisation of candidates, Interviews to CVs, Placement to Interviews and as we are discussing here, response to adverts.
Seek and the major jobboards give us good tools for measuring search results, views, applications – any manager ever looked at the Seek stats compared to what is in their own system? – amazing how consultants seem to lose good CVs between Seek and their desk
So often we measure quantity in this industry, not quality. Less can so often be more.
[...] have blogged previously (here is that post) about how job ads these days are all to similar and the structure has gone the way of robotic, [...]