job adverts
How to design and write effective job advertisements - tips and techniques
The best techniques for writing effective job advertisements are
the same as for other forms of advertising. The job is your product; the
readers of the job advert are your potential customers. The
Job adverts and recruitment processes should follow the
classical AIDA selling format: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
This means that good job advertisements must first attract
attention (from appropriate job-seekers); attract relevant interest (by
establishing relevance in the minds of the ideal candidates); create desire (to
pursue what looks like a great opportunity), and finally provide a clear
instruction for the next action or response.
Job adverts written by people who fail to follow these vital
principles will fail to attract job applicants of quality in quantity. I
generally try to avoid pointing out what not to do. Positive examples generally
work better than negative ones, however it is useful to point out some common
pitfalls for writing and designing job adverts - the quality broadsheets are
littered with examples every week, and you will do well to avoid these traps:
job adverts no-nos
- over-designed graphics
(distracts and slows reading)
- extravagantly presented layouts
and words (distracts and slows reading)
- difficult to read quickly or at
all for any reason
- font (type-style) too small or
too large
- capital-letters (upper-case)
- lots of words in italics - they
are a lot more difficult to read quickly
- strange-looking or fancy fonts
- printed in daft colours or
tints against a coloured, patterned or picture background
- clever or obscure headlines
- coded and idiosyncratic
communications
- too much technical detail about
the job or the company
- too many words - they are a
real turn-off - keep it simple
- uninspiring, boring
descriptions of roles and ideal candidates
- too much emphasis on the job
and not enough on the person
- adverts in reverse (mirror) or
upside-down (not permitted anyway by most media)
- weird advert box shapes, for
example wide and flat or tall and thin
- huge half-page or whole-page or
double-page spreads - a waste of money
If you use a designer
to create and produce artwork for your job advert I urge you to control their
creative instincts - a job advert is advertising a job, it is not a CD cover or
a bottle of shampoo.
Here's a reminder of
the essential writing tips for advertising and for clarity of business
communications, in the context of writing and designing effective job or
recruitment advertisements:
job adverts writing tips
Use one simple
headline, and make the job advert headline relevant and clear. Normally the
logical headline is the job title itself - this is after all what people will
be looking for.
If the job title does
not implicitly describe the job function, then use a strapline to do so. Better
still, if you find yourself writing a job advert for a truly obscure job title
which in no way conveys what the job function is, then consider changing the
job title.
An effective
alternative main headline - especially for strategic roles with a lot of
freedom - is to describe (very succinctly - and in an inspirational manner) the
main purpose of the role, which can then be used with the job title and organization's
name serving as secondary headings.
If the organization is
known and has a good reputation among the targeted readers then show the
organization or brand name prominently, as a strapline or main heading with the
job title, or incorporated in the job advert frame design, or in one of the
corners of the space, in proper logo-style format.
N.B. Some
organizations prefer not to tell the whole world that they are recruiting, in
which case, if this is your policy, obviously do not feature your organization's
name in the job advert. On which point - if you use a recruitment consultancy,
examine the extent to which your job advert is promoting the recruitment
agency's name, and if you think they are over-egging things perhaps suggest
they contribute to the cost of the advert, or reduce the size of their corporate branding on your advert.
Make the advert easy
to read. Use simple language, avoid complicated words unless absolutely
necessary (for example if recruiting for Head of Rocket Science), and keep
enough space around the text to attract attention to it. Less is more. Giving
text some space is a very powerful way of attracting the eye, and also a way of
ensuring you write efficiently. Efficient writing enables efficient reading.
Use language that your
reader uses. If you want clues as to what this might be imagine the newspaper
they read, and limit your vocabulary to that found in the newspaper.
Use short sentences.
More than fifteen words in a sentence reduces the clarity of the meaning. After
drafting your communication, seek out commas and 'and's, and replace with
full-stops.
Use bullet points and
short bite-sized paragraphs. A lot of words in one big paragraph is very
off-putting to the reader and will probably not be read.
Use simple
type-styles: Arial, Tahoma, Times, etc, or your house-style equivalents or
variations. Serif fonts (like Times) are more traditional and more readable.
Sans serif (like Arial and Tahoma) are more modern-looking, but are less easy
to read especially for a lot of text. It's your choice.
Use 12-20ish
point-size for headings and subheadings. Try to avoid upper-case (capitals)
even in headings - it's very much slower to read. Increase prominence by use of
a larger point-size, and to an extent emboldening, not by using capitals.
CAPITALS HAVE NO WORDSHAPES - SEE WHAT I MEAN?)
Use ten, eleven or
twelve point-size for the main text; smaller or larger are actually more
difficult to read and therefore less likely to be read. Definitely avoid
upper-case (capitals) in the 'body copy' (main text).
For the same reason
avoid italics, shadows, light colours reversed out of dark, weird and wonderful
colours. None of these improve readability, they all reduce it. Use simple
black (or dark coloured) text on a white (or light coloured) background for
maximum readability.
Get the reader
involved. Refer to the reader as ‘you’ and use the second person (‘you’, ‘your’
and ‘yours’ etc) in the description of the requirements and expectations of the
candidate and the job role. This helps people to visualise themselves in the
role. It involves them.
Try to incorporate
something new, innovative, exciting, challenging - people are attracted to new
things - either in the company or the role.
Stress what is unique.
You must try to emphasise what makes your job and organization special. People
want to work for special employers and are generally not motivated to seek work
with boring, run-of-the-mill, ordinary, unadventurous organizations.
Job advert statements
and descriptions must be credible. Employers or jobs that sound too good to be
true will only attract the gullible and the dreamers.
Remember AIDA: The Attention part is the banner or headline that makes an
impressive benefit promise. Interest builds information in an interesting way,
usually meaning that this must relate closely to the way that the reader thinks
about the issues concerned. Since job advertisements aim to produce a response
you must then create Desire, which relates job appeal and rewards to the
reader so that they will aspire to them and want them. Finally you must prompt
an Action, which may be to call a telephone number or to send CV, or to
download an application form from a website address. Your job advert should
follow this step by step format to be effective.
Your main heading,
strapline and main message must be prominent. Do not be tempted to devote 75%
of the space to a diagram of your latest technology or photograph of your new
manufacturing plant in Neasden.
Headlines do not have
to be at the top of the frame - your eye is naturally drawn to a point between
two-thirds and three-quarters up in the framed area, which means you have room
above the headline for some subtle branding, or - heaven forfend - for some
blank space.
The best position for
adverts on a job page is 'right thumbnail'. That is, top right corner.
Right-side sheet is better than the left because your eye is naturally drawn
right on turning over the page, which reveals the left-side sheet last.
Top-right corner is the first part of a double page spread to be revealed. Top
of page is better than bottom - obviously - we read from top down, not the other
way around.
Resist the temptation
to buy a half-page or a full page (unless the page size is very small) - you do
not need it. A quarter of a page is adequate and optimal in most publications,
indeed arguably even unnecessarily large in broadsheet newspapers.
People assume that big
adverts produce a big response - they don't unless they are good. A good
moderately sized advert will produce just as good a response as a good massive
advert. Added to which you can run more insertions of sensibly sized adverts
than big ones.
job adverts checklist
Having seen the layout
and design rules above, here are the items to include in an effective job
advert. The bold items are those which would normally be essential; the others
are optional depending on local policy and circumstances. The list is loosely
in order but this is in no way prescriptive - use a sequence that works best.
- job title
- employer or recruitment
agency/consultancy
- job base location
- succinct description of
business/organization/division activity and market position and aims
- to whom the position reports -
or other indication of where the role is in the structure
- outline of job role and purpose
- expressed in the 'second-person' (you, your, etc)
- indication of scale, size,
responsibility, timescale, and territory of role
- outline of ideal candidate
profile - expressed in 'second-person'
- indicate qualifications and
experience required (which could be incorporated within candidate profile)
- salary or salary guide
- whether the role is full-time
or permanent or a short-term contract (if not implicitly clear from
elsewhere in the advert)
- other package details or guide
(pension, car etc)
- explanation of recruitment
process
- response and application instructions
- contact details as necessary,
for example, address, phone, fax, email, etc.
- job and or advert reference
(advert references help you analyse results from different adverts for the
same job)
- website address
- corporate branding
- quality accreditations, for
example in the UK, Investor in People
- equal opportunities statement
lternative job advertising and recruitment
methods
An alternative approach is to place the advert with application
form, instructions, job description, candidate profile, etc., as downloadable
pdf or similar files on the internet, and use a smaller advert in your chosen
media, containing far less detail, which acts as a signpost to direct people to
the website URL. This enables a high-impact relatively low-cost small printed
media advert.
Consider also:
Out-placement organizations. (Which help place people in jobs
who have lost theirs for one reason or another - often very high-calibre people
lose their jobs, for no fault of their own. Also, organizations commonly use
out-placement companies to help find jobs for staff who have been made
redundant, and this route offers a rich pool of talent and experience).
And in a similar vein, armed forces resettlement programmes.
(The armed forces produce a constant stream of highly trained, highly
disciplined, technically very competent people. So do the police and fire
services. Many of these people retire early, or leave the services before
retirement, in which case they often pass through resettlement programmes,
which can be a very worthwhile recruiting pool.)
Universities, colleges and schools.
Trade associations and membership bodies.
Internet recruitment resources.
Using headhunters for middle and senior position
