Writing Enticing Job Descriptions in a Competitive Job Market

In today’s job market, strong candidates are in high demand – and companies need to be intentional about the hiring process. A well-written, compelling job description can be the difference between a lackluster talent pool and a competitive slate of applicants. Here, MassLive Media Group offers guidance on how to create a job posting that will showcase your company and draw in applicants.

Be Concise

Your job posting should give candidates a complete picture of the role while being succinct. Make sure to include:

  • Company information: Give a high-level overview of your company, including your mission.
  • Position description: Highlight the primary responsibilities of the person in this role, noting both day-to-day tasks and long-term projects.
  • Desired qualifications: List the hard and soft skills that the ideal applicant should have.
  • Compensation: Provide a salary range and list the benefits your company offers.

These can all be brief – bullet points and short paragraphs are best, and the entire job description shouldn’t be more than a page long. While it may be tempting to include a long list of your desired qualifications, try to distill it down to a few key skills. You don’t want to dissuade applicants who might be a great fit but don’t meet every requirement in a laundry list of credentials.

Avoid Jargon

It’s preferable to avoid internal lingo that might confuse applicants. Instead, use clear, inclusive language that helps you attract a wide range of qualified candidates. Of course, if you need the new hire to be versed in certain programs or hold specific certifications, you should include those. But otherwise, eliminate insider verbiage and consider asking someone outside your company or industry to review the description.

Highlight Benefits and Perks

Employers will often list employee benefits in job postings, but they may not realize just how important these are to applicants. A recent Gallup survey found that 64% of employees chose pay and benefits as the most important factor in accepting a new job. In addition to health insurance, retirement benefits, and paid time off, mention other types of perks, such as:

  • Flexible scheduling or hybrid work
  • Commuter benefits
  • Professional development opportunities
  • Employee assistance programs
  • Relocation assistance

These unique benefits can help you stand out from your competition.

Be Transparent

Candidates appreciate clear information about your company, as well as specifics on your hiring process. Give context within the position description: who will the new hire report to, and who will they supervise? What department does this role fit into and what is the team makeup?

While you don’t need to go into extensive detail, give an overview of your hiring timeline and process. For example, you might share that a position will have an initial interview with your HR team, a writing assessment, and a final interview with the manager for the role. With so many companies now offering hybrid or remote work, it’s also helpful to share your expectations about when and where the employee will work.

Ask for Feedback

It’s helpful to have other team members review a job description and suggest edits, especially if they’ve held a similar role or will work directly with the new hire. They’ll have ground-level insights into the position and can assess if the posting accurately reflects your company culture. You may also want input from a marketing specialist to ensure the language reflects your brand voice and identity.

Get Expert Advice from AMNY Recruitment Marketing

Need help reaching the right candidates? At MassLive Media Group, we design tailored recruitment solutions to help you save time while targeting your outreach. Our team has extensive experience crafting marketing and recruitment campaigns for a wide range of industries.

With both print and digital marketing expertise, we help companies throughout the United States and beyond reach top-notch candidates. To learn more about MassLive Media Group and how we can support your hiring efforts, contact us today.

 

References

https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-acquisition/tips-for-writing-enticing-job-descriptions-in-candidates-market

https://www.indeed.com/hire/how-to-write-a-job-description

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2021/10/29/want-to-write-a-better-more-effective-job-description-follow-these-14-tips/?sh=2ad8ab66671a

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/389807/top-things-employees-next-job.aspx

Manufacturing Recruitment Strategy

Worker shortages in manufacturing industry is real. Highly skilled positions remain open as a significant portion of the manufacturing workforce is nearing retirement age. For manufacturers, building and maintaining a robust and skilled talent pool is key for both short-term and long-term hiring success.

Recruitment Marketing as a Relationship Builder, Not Just Candidate Sourcing

Don’t wait to be present until a position is open – consistently position your brand in front of both passive and active job seekers. Consistent branding creates a talent pool who is familiar with your company, benefits, culture and therefore more likely to consider you when looking to make a career change. Top of the funnel marketing tactics such as video and display make your brand presence known.

Build A Connection By Understanding Your Best Potential Candidates 

Develop personas, marketing strategies and campaigns specific to your common open positions. Different positions attract different types of candidates. Understanding the nuances allows you to more directly content with job seekers, to communicate your company story and to welcome them into your culture with a personalized approach. Seek out a recruitment marketing partner with a deep data bench, capable of developing audience segments, media placements and creative to speak directly to specific candidate audiences.

Enhance Your Job Board Presence with Display & Video

Placements on job boards are effective in reaching those actively seeking a position. However, other traditional marketing methods like targeted display and video allow companies to share their full story. More visual formats let prospective candidates see your benefits and experience your culture. Both elements that can cause them to choose you as their next employer – over your competition.

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Healthcare Recruitment Strategy

A growing aging population, pandemic burnout and a ramp up of traveling nurse opportunities have put a strain on healthcare recruitment. Nurses are in high demand – with an abundance of employment options to choose from. How does your healthcare facility standout in this mad dash for employment?

Invest in the Community You Serve

Healthcare is essential to the community. Consider supporting the community you serve by sponsoring local events, job fairs and awards to keep your organization top-of-mind. Not only will these positive associations bring your organization front and center, it will also generate positive word of mouth among the community – reaching friends and families connected to potential candidates.

Showcase Company Culture

Give a glimpse of what its like to work at your organization on any given day. Show the people who work there, the halls to be walked and the benefits to be had. Video succinctly communicates positive culture through virtual tours, testimonials and more. Written testimonials and other content featuring current employees lend authenticity to your showcase.

Replenish Talent Pools with New Grads

New graduates are critical in helping to fill staffing gaps and to replenish talent pools. Utilize highly targeted strategies to reach new graduates, while still on campus, where they are spending their time. Hyper local mobile targeting puts your organization front and center among soon-to-be-graduating adding you to their consideration set for post-graduation employment.

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Education Recruitment Strategy

Like most categories of business, education providers are facing faculty and staff shortages. Finding experienced and passionate educators and faculty continues to be a challenge. Education institutions should look beyond salary and benefits to larger strategies to drive interest and applications for the upcoming school year ahead.

Build Your Talent Pool with Year-Round Strategy

Primary education recruitment season begins at the end of the previous school year, with many schools starting from scratch every year. Establishing a year-round recruitment marketing strategy, allows you
to reach faculty and staff considering a change throughout the school year, adding them to your talent pool as the year progresses. Having a year-round plan also puts your institution front and center, outside of the more cluttered traditional recruitment period.

Utilize Your Community As A Recruitment Tool

Your community has the potential to be a unique selling point for your institution. Consider highlighting the quality of life – showing prospective employees the community you serve. Community events, local activities, cost of living and more can have pull over prospective employees looking to make a move or to enjoy a way of life your community offers. Partner with local events, local organizations and even your convention and visitors bureau to generate content about your community.

Job Fairs Help Build Awareness of Your Institution

Passive and Active job seekers join job fairs to learn more about prospective districts and institutions. By merely being present, among your competition, you can ensure that your district or institution is in the consideration set for educators looking to make a career move. Both in-person and virtual career fairs provide additional visibility and awareness for your institution.

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Warehouse Recruitment Strategy

Warehouses are experiencing unprecedented growth thanks to a shift towards online shopping. As growth continues and timely shipping remains critical, warehouses face a continual shortage of workers.

Tout the Benefits That Make You Stand Out

Warehousing jobs are not historically known for good benefits and upward mobility. With changing demand and increased competition, more warehouse companies are adding long-term benefits and job training to their offerings. As an employer, tout benefits like 401Ks, employer matching and paid training as part of new hire packages. Talk about your openings more as long-term careers vs. short- term or holiday employment for additional appeal.

Get Connected In the Community

Grassroots community efforts and word of mouth tactics still hold strong in warehousing recruitment. Sponsoring local community events and job fairs raises brand awareness in the community, spreads positive sentiment about your organization and jump starts word of mouth. This simple activation makes your organization more likely to be noticed by potential job seekers and considered as a stable, future local employer in a future job search.

Local Jobs, Local Placements

Warehousing recruitment pulls most applicants and new hires locally. Very rarely to companies hire outside of their immediate market. Tap into the local job seeker scene through local job boards, job fairs and other local job posting opportunities. Local job seekers continually use these outlets to find new employment opportunities.

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Address Trucking Industry Myths

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Stay in Touch with Prospects

Deciding to change careers can be a lengthy process for passive job seekers. Keep your talent pool active with periodic communication about your business, job openings and career benefits. Set up an email calendar, reaching out to a list of emails from those who you met at job fairs, submitted an inquiry or sent a full resume. Frequently post about your culture, the trucking industry and openings to keep your followers engaged.

Job Boards Are Important

Trucking applicants remain tapped in to local and regional job boards. A presence on local job boards and job aggregator sites provide you business with bottom of the funnel presence – reaching those interested in the truck industry and actively applying now.

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Professional Recruitment Strategy

Finding outstanding talent that fits your culture is a concern for any business. Make the most of your time and resources by attracting qualified candidates that can hit the ground running and succeed within your organization. Identify quality talent and cultivate your talent pool with leading recruitment marketing strategies perfect for professional businesses.

Showcase Your Company Culture

Tell the story of your business, your history, your employees and more. The more a prospective employee knows about your operations and culture the more they are able to determine whether they are a match for your organization. Office tour videos, employee testimonials and other visuals can help to show daily life within your company.

Tailor Communications to Open Positions

Instead of deploying blanket recruitment ads for all positions in your company, consider developing custom creative and campaigns for each position. Messaging should focus on key benefits and operations of that role, showcase photos and videos of that segment of your business and speak directly to those candidates. Specific communication, drives more qualified applications – increasing your odds of finding a match while building up your talent pool - than general recruitment ads.

Use Job Boards to Reach Active Job Seekers

Job Fairs, local job boards and job board aggregators remain critical bottom-of-the-funnel tactics in securing applications for open positions. While other flashier tactics will fill the top of your funnel, these more nitty-gritty media elements provide a place for active job seekers to seamlessly apply for the positions they want – now.

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