Employer and Business Tools

Many factors go into creating a job ad that will attract the right applicants. Below I've listed what I feel to be the 3 most important contributors:

1. Appearances First for the Job Ad. Consider the job seeker who is searching through endless newspapers, online job ads, and e-mails: will they be more responsive to a huge block of text, or an attractive full-color job advertisement? The answer is obvious. Now, there's no need to get tacky with colors and pictures, but a professional and attractive job ad can be priceless. There are online services such as this one or this one, which offer pre-designed job templates to help the creatively challenged.


2. Content is Crucial in Your Job Ad. If your job posting reads like a list of ingredients on the side of a cereal box, you've probably already lost some great potential candidates. In addition, use your words wisely (see this article for some great examples on writing a great job ad). Also, make your job ad portray the benefits of the position as well as the requirements. Get creative, but be professional!


3. Post Your Job Online. Sayings like "A needle in a haystack" apply to your job posting if it's hidden among all the rest in the classified section of a newspaper. If you post ypur job online, then you're definitely on the right track, but that still doesn't guarantee that it will get noticed by the right audience. The best thing to do to get your job ad the most exposure is by posting it onseveral online ad sites, such as Craigslist or Indeed. The most efficient way to do this is by using a job ad posting service that posts your job ad to tons of these online sites automatically.
   

So when you're wrestling with whether or not your latest candidate is right for the position, ask yourself first, "Did I attract the right type of applicants for this position with my job ad?" If you've read and applied the information here, then you can confidently answer yes! If not, well, best of luck weeding through the overflow.

• Post Jobs Online - A Blog
  
  Resources and Tools for creating an effective online job ad.


• The 2 Keys to Killer Job Ads
  
  Make it about them, not about you. Stress the Benefits and a Call to Action.


• Writing Better Job Ads
  
  Writing your ads specifically for an online audience brings dividends. Not only do well written job ads attract a greater number of applicants, but often they also attract a more qualified applicant.


• Performing a Job Analysis
  
  The more information you can gather, the easier the actual writing of the job description will be.


• Finding and Keeping Great Employees - Book
  
  Reveals how some of today's most progressive companies are meeting the challenge.