By DAVID LEWIS
When it comes to advertising your need to hire someone new for your business the job posting has become one of the most critical tools for your firm. Write it wrong and you could be looking at a longer-than-usual time to hire, impacting multiple facets of your business. Write it correctly and your bottom line will benefit. Here are some critical tips designed to help you better connect with and attract top talent.
A job posting is essentially a marketing/sales document and needs to be treated as such. All too often job postings seem to be thrown together without much forethought and without serious consideration for how competitive the job market can be, even in uncertain times. Candidates will skip over a poorly written posting, which many view as an indication that uneven effort to explain the job is indicative of the company”™s culture and execution as a business. In the past we had the excuse of writing these with very limited text, after all we were paying by the letter for mostly newspaper advertising. Today, online is the medium of choice and space is not the same commodity it used to be. With that in mind there”™s no good reason to be overly brief.
A good job posting consists of the following parts:
Who you are, with a little color on your business, history, all with the focus of selling the reader on why they may want to work for you.
The title of the role, along with a list of the key responsibilities the candidate would own.
A list of requirements focused on past experience, schooling, skills, attitude, core competencies, flexibility requirements, and perhaps education.
A section that talks about company benefits, compensation and even corporate perks and culture (free lunch, casual dress).
A closing section that describes how to apply for the position, along with what critical information must be provided at that time.
There are some legal pitfalls to be aware of as you draft these. For one be careful about implied age discrimination, specifically from statements about maximum experience or even ranges (for example, “2-4 years experience” vs. the more politically correct and less divisive “2+ years”). Focus instead on communicating the junior nature of the role in the responsibilities. Stay away from implying the job requires someone who is physically able to perform tasks (to the implied exclusion of candidates who have physical or other handicaps); this can also lead to trouble. These are tricky areas and as such may require some input from an HR or legal professional to ensure you stay far away from crossing any lines.
The above framework can easily leave you with a long document, so be sure to edit accordingly so as not to run on too long and potentially lose the reader as a result. There”™s a balance between more vs. less that takes time to achieve. Getting your marketing/communications team involved in this exercise, something not done enough in the world of recruiting, is bound to result in a far sharper, more complete sales effort toward this audience, resulting in better candidates and shorter times needed to hire.
David Lewis is president/CEO of FairfieldCountyJobs.com, the region”™s most prolific job board with more than 100,000 visitors a month to view jobs from more than 4,000 area employers. His monthly reports talk to the condition of the job market as measured by data from his sites, as well as data from state, federal and industry sources in the public domain. The website is FairfieldCountyJobs.com.
