| Recruiting on the internet is different than any
other type of recruitment. The ability to use as much space as possible, to hyperlink to
community resources (chambers of commerce, city websites, etc.), and to talk about what
makes your opportunity worth pursuing, are some of the reasons that the internet is
becoming a popular recruitment method.
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A Job Ad for the
Ages
By Peter Weddle
Reprinted with permission from WEDDLE's, The Newsletter
for Successful
On-line Recruiting. All Rights Reserved. For additional information
about WEDDLE's, please see www.weddles.com
In an economy that is enjoying virtually full employment, the competition to attract
and hold the attention of high caliber prospective candidates is fierce. As parallel
pressures mount to cut the time and cost of filling position vacancies, corporate and
third party recruiters alike are using the internet to supplement their traditional
practices. In the process, they are developing and refining an array of techniques to use
that medium for promoting employment opportunities and sourcing candidates.
Today, there is much ado about building recruitment areas on corporate home pages,
selecting general and niche recruitment websites, mining resumes at Usenet newsgroups,
e-mail based electronic networking and relationship building through sponsored
professional development sites. All of these techniques can be extremely effective.
Ultimately, however, the battle for the best and brightest will be won or lost with the
on-line job ad.
The hardy little statement is still the primary method by which job seekers –
passive as well as active – find, acquire information about and evaluate employment
opportunities in cyberspace. Whether it is posted on a recruitment website, lobbed into a
newsgroup or enclosed in an e-mail message, the on-line job ad is the ultimate,
irreducible currency of recruitment on the Internet. The challenge for individual
recruiters, therefore, is to craft such ads so that they consistently generate a
satisfactory return, measured in the number of qualified candidates who respond to them.
As with print candidates, there is both art and science to creating such an on-line job
ad, one which:
- Attracts great candidates
- In adequate numbers
- With the right stuff, and
- At just the right time
for effective staffing.
Expertly crafted on-line jobs ads can work magic with even the most passive of job
seekers, while poorly written ads will not move even the most determined employment
candidate. What spells the difference?
Increasingly, recruiters are discovering that the best on-line job ads are those which
use the special properties of cyberspace. Unlike classified ads, which are constrained by
the limited and very expensive space of print publications, job postings can and should
tap the Internet’s more expansive dimensions. On-line job ads don’t have to be
compressed into one or two lines of copy, or filled with the abbreviations and code words
devised for classified advertising. Indeed, the best job postings offer a complete and
compelling description of an employment opportunity. They are not so long as to be boring,
but long enough to both inform and sell the reader. Further, they use vocabulary and
images that grab, hold and persuade, not the mind numbing language of most job
descriptions. In short, print classifieds work like an elbow to the ribs, whereas good
on-line job ads raise goosebumps.
Similarly, job postings must not be static. Instead, they sould use the interactive
capability of the Internet to engage job seekers in the ad’s message by enabling them
to participate in its expression. That can be accomplished by inserting a link in the
ad’s copy which connects the prospective candidates to the organization’s
recruitment website, if it has one, or to its corporate website. In the latter case, the
link should move candidates directly to the employment area of the site where they have
immediate access to additional job-related information. In addition, the most effective
on-line job ads always include an e-mail connection or link to an on-line application form
so that the job seeker can apply for the position immediately from the ad.
The Job Seeker’s Perspective
The other key to an effective on-line job posting is its perspective.
In essence, the ad should describe an employment opportunity so that it:
- Answers the key questions that would occur to most job seekers, and
- Sells the position by touching on the "hot buttons" or key interests and
concerns of prime candidates.
To meet those objectives, however, the ad must relate to a specific job seeker. And as
most recruiters know, there are several distinct cohorts within the candidate population,
each with a unique set of interests and goals. Among these groups, the two most important
are probably the active job seekers and their always elusive passive counterparts. The
secret to truly effective job posting, then, is to include features and information that
will appeal to both of these cohorts. The following tips will get you started.
Active Job Seekers
- Use terms that attract those who want a new job right away, such as "Immediate
Opening" or "Available Now".
- List the required skills for the position in bullets so that they can be easily scanned
by job seekers.
- Describe the required skills in terms that are likely to be used by the candidates as
key words in a database search engine. Also use any common synonyms for those terms.
- Include information about your organizations facility, work environment, unique or
unusual benefits and other intangibles that can help to set it apart.
- Acknowledge receipt of a person’s resume or job application. Such courtesy keeps
job seekers answering your organization’s ads, even if they aren’t selected for
the first position to which they apply.
Passive Job Seekers
- Specify the city, state and region (e.g., heart of the Smoky Mountains) where the job is
located, plus include a link to any community web pages describing the benefits of its
lifestyle. Passive job seekers will often consider a new position if it enables them to
move somewhere they consider particularly interesting or appealing.
- Use a real person to receive responses to the ad, as passive job seekers often consider
that a more private or confidential way to inquire about/apply for a position.
- Include information about your organization’s new product or service developments,
market initiatives and career opportunities, because such intangibles are often what sets
an ad apart for a passive job seeker. (Note from ultrasoundjobs.com: This refers to
the corporate world. In healthcare, you would mention such things as, liberal education
fund for all employees, the professionalism of the department, unusual call policies,
those attributes that make your facility different from others.)
Finally, there is some evidence which suggest that neither active job seekers in
certain heavily recruited fields, nor passive job seekers generally will even bother to
read, let alone respond to a job ad which does not include the position’s salary
range or pay rate, placed so that it is quickly and easily located in the copy. Despite
all the talk about the search for meaningful work, it seems that the bottom line is still
a key factor in attracting many of today’s most difficult to recruit employees.
While on-line recruiting is still an emerging field, we already know a great deal about
how to write an effective on-line job ad. As with any other endeavor, however, it takes a
little practice. If you invest the time to acquire the skills and apply them artfully,
your on-line job ads can pay huge dividends. Nielson now estimates that there are 70
million people using the Internet at work or home, and a well-honed job posting can give
your organization a genuine competitive advantage.
© Copyright 1998 Peter D. Weddle
Peter D. Weddle writes a weekly column for Dow Jones profiling on-line
employment sites, publishes WEDDLE’S Wildly Useful, Up-to-the-Minute Newsletter about
Internet Resources for Successful Recruiting and is the author of "Internet Resumes:
Take the Net to Your Next Job" (Impact, 1998)
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