Typically when a company has a job vacancy, the first course of action is to place a recruitment ad on-line or in the local paper. These days amidst a war for talent and an increasing number of media choices, many clients are asking how they can make their recruitment advertising give them the best bang for their buck.
A recruitment advertisement does a lot of things; it is a call to action that prompts interest from potential candidates, it broadcasts the opportunity and it is a convenient way for job seekers to identify available job opportunities and apply. In a lot of cases the candidates with the talent that employers require are already employed. For this reason a recruitment ad must function as an electronic sales brochure, a posting that has enough selling power to convince those candidates that they want a change.
Employers need to keep in mind that a recruitment ad is an opportunity to engage interest with the candidate audience. It should focus attention on your company and the opportunity. It is not meant to be a job description. Rather than filling the ad space with nitty-gritty mundane details of the position, instead focus on the great selling features of your company and key challenges of the position.
Start with a powerful, compelling statement about why the opening is a dream job. Identify your company’s competitive advantages and then build your ad to lead with those factors and fully describe them. Your ad must promote the special attributes of your employer and its workers as much as the challenge of the opening itself. Speak to your company’s strengths, history and culture. The goal here is to spark interest and generate dialogue with potential candidates. Specific details of the position and technical requirements can be discussed in detail once the candidate has expressed interest and you start interviewing.
A well placed advertisement is also essential. Think about who you are trying to reach. Depending on your target candidate, an on-line ad on an industry association web-site may make more sense than a print advertisement depending on your audience.
In recent years, social media has added a new piece to the puzzle. This medium offers innovative and often inexpensive avenues to reach candidates directly through sources such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and it can yield great results. Utilizing these to their full advantage does take a larger investment of time than most other advertising options. A half-hearted attempt at social media recruitment will almost certainly have a detrimental effect.
These days it is easier than ever for candidates to apply with their resumes. With a quick click of an email candidates can send resumes to any company from anywhere in the world. Employers are often overwhelmed by the volume of applications they receive for a posting only to be disappointed when the volume doesn’t include a lot of quality, suitable candidates.
The reality is that sometimes recruitment advertising doesn’t work. You are relying on the right candidate being in the right place at the right time to respond to the advertisement. That’s a lot of eggs in one basket! In an increasingly competitive talent market employers must realize that advertising is one part of the recruitment equation. Just as the right golf club might help you hit the ball straighter, it alone will not erase your handicap. Your best bet is to develop a well written savvy recruitment ad, place it strategically and leverage your advertisement with other methods such as an employee referral program.
Post new comment