A glance at the Jobs section of your city on Craigslist or similar site will reveal many bland job posts. They often annoy potential applicants or don’t catch the interest of the job-seeker at all.
A poor job post results in missed talent. This is especially true when looking for a new employee to take over a leadership position within your company. Someone with years of experience is going to miss a poorly titled or disorganized ad. Any lack of necessary information will discourage potential applicants.
Below are some points to consider while crafting a job post:
Title
-Research those who would be interested in the position. If you are looking for someone entry-level to primarily manage your social media accounts, use words that will catch their attention. In this instance, you wouldn’t want to use “Online Marketing Specialist.” Rather, you could use “Entry-level Social Media position” as your title.
-You can be creative with your title too. Too much creativity can make the post sound ridiculous and reflects poorly on the company. This can be especially harmful if you are looking to fill a manager or executive position within the company. For example, “Do you tweet as much as a bird?” is a title that is not only unprofessional but the potential applicant has no idea what the post will contain. “Social Media Manager – Tweet, tweet!” grabs the attention and at the same time features the job position in the title. Someone looking for a position dealing with social media will be interested in such a title and will be more likely to click it.
Content
-Job requirements should be very clear. Make sure the job duties and responsibilities are easily understood; perhaps by separating them in list-form. Describing either of these sections in paragraph-form can become daunting and the applicant may misread or skip over pieces of information which would disqualify them from the job. This not only wastes their time but it wastes that of the HR representative looking over the applications.
-Don’t overdo it on the requirements and job duties/responsibilities. Neither should have more than about 10.
-Provide a brief description of the company and its culture. This will increase the likelihood of compatibility the applicant will find once he or she is part of your business.
-Specify how you wish to be contacted and do so at the bottom of your post. Do you have an online application set up on your website? Provide a link to it. Would you like to be emailed through the Craigslist-covered email (this helps prevent spam), then indicate so at the bottom of the post.
-Look over your ad before posting. Run the final text through Microsoft Word. Use spell-check. This is especially important if you are looking for applicants with years of experience.
Formatting
-You don’t need to be a coding whiz to spice up your job posts and make them look more professional. Simple HTML tags such as <strong> can be used to make things appear much more organized and structured.
-Feature images and format your post so it’s easier for potential candidates to. Your company has a logo, so go ahead and use it at the top or bottom of your post. This is especially effective on Craigslist, which does allow the use of embedding images. Craigslist posts with images will identify themselves as such on the Craigslist search results. These posts will immediately stand out to the job-seeker among other results.
For more information on job posting, human resource consulting or employer programs, contact Xenium HR at 503-612-1555 or visit www.xeniumhr.com. It is intended as information only and is not a substitute for legal advice. Xenium HR is a professional employer organization specializing in strategic HR partnership with small and mid-sized businesses in Portland, Oregon.
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