A common struggle for business owners is finding the right talent, especially as you scale and start to require broader skill sets. It’s also vital to find candidates that don’t just have the aptitude but fit the business culture as well. If you’re a hiring manager, building this talent pipeline is hard but can be incredibly rewarding over the long term. In this article, we explore how to advertise a job the right way and all of the steps you can take to ensure success.
How to Advertise a Job Opening
Here are the main steps you should take to advertise a job opening in the right way:
1. Set out your recruitment needs
Before you start advertising any jobs, it’s a good idea to build out a clear plan of what you’re looking for. Consider the broader hierarchy of the business and niches that you want to fill for future success. Likewise, take the time to understand the business culture you’ve developed, how your current employees fit into it and what you’re looking for from future employees.
2. Identify the demographics you’re advertising to
Try not to take a ‘scattergun’ approach to your job advertising. You want to identify your key markets and advertise to them directly. If you have several entry-level roles, for example, you may want to advertise to graduates or younger professionals that will likely match the experience level required for the role. Once you have this in mind, you’ll be in a better position to focus your advertising.
3. Create a job description
The most important part of advertising a role is the job description. It’s likely the first thing potential candidates will see and it dictates whether they apply for the role. Your job description has to engage the reader from the beginning, providing necessary information upfront and then going into more detail as you progress further.
The easiest way to engage with potential candidates is to format your job description in a way that’s easy-to-read and concise. Use bullet points and text formatting to break up large paragraphs, with concise and sensible headings throughout. Similarly, you may want to frontload the job description with all of the ‘must know’ information including salary, required qualifications, location and required experience. This way you’re grabbing people that only skim read and weeding out potential time wasters.
At this point it’s critical to also keep your own expectations in check. If you create a job description that effectively mixes three different roles together – which often happens in marketing or similar industries – you’re not going to get the right talent. People who work in the market won’t apply for a role like that. Likewise, make sure you include salary expectations and other compensation.
4. Use social media
A great way of finding new talent is by using social media. It’s the quickest and easiest way to reach larger audiences, as well as demographics you may not usually speak to. You can use your initial research to better understand which platform will work best for you. More senior employees, for example, will likely be on LinkedIn or something similar.
Once you’ve established where your audience lives, post consistently on these platforms and maintain conversations with peers across your network.
5. Post on job boards
While they don’t represent focused advertising, websites such as Indeed still receive a lot of traffic and can be a great way of sourcing talent from active job searchers.
As usual, ensure that your adverts are formatted correctly, look appealing and provide all of the necessary information. You want to make your advert as descriptive as possible at this point as this helps filter out as many unsuitable applicants as possible.
It’s worth having a dedicated resource managing the various adverts across these job boards. This ensures all of the job information is up-to-date and you’re constantly responding to great candidates.
6. Hire a recruitment agency
While the above advice is great for accessing the active market, a recruitment agency can help you tap into the passive market – meaning your role suddenly reaches a much wider audience.
Recruitment agencies also offer insights into the market that you wouldn’t usually have access to. They typically understand what candidates are looking for and how to introduce clients in the right way.
Many businesses also don’t realise how resource-intensive recruitment can be. It requires significant time investment – particularly if you’re hiring for multiple roles – which takes away from your overall productivity. Recruitment agencies can alleviate this whilst also providing a more efficient end result.
If you’re looking for a recruitment agency in the Channel Islands to support your employee recruitment, get in touch with us here.