Proven Strategies to Boost Your Job Ads

By: Patricia Guillan

Even the most well-written job ads can still fail to attract qualified and top-notch candidates. With sourcing and recruitment becoming more and more competitive in a digitised era, it is no surprise that sourcing strategies have transitioned to becoming a marketing scheme rather than just a part of the recruitment process.

A study by Indeed found that 58% of job seekers use job boards as their primary job search method, which only emphasises the significance of job ads as the primary way to attract potential quality candidates. However, it is important to remember that in today’s time, job boards are not your only options for marketing your job vacancy. 

It is important to know what advertising strategy works best for you. 

There are many ways to advertise job openings. Finding the best strategy that works for you makes you more efficient in terms of maximising your recruitment potential. Given that a lot of tools and strategies have surfaced over time, understanding the core elements of your job advertisement campaigns can help you find the most suitable candidate for your job vacancy. 

Read along to find out more about boosting your job ads and keeping up with trends to effectively market your job vacancy. 

Elements of a Job Ad 

If you want to start boosting your job ads, it is important to know what makes a great job ad. Here are the elements of a job ad’s basic structure: 

Job Title

Your job title is a key ingredient that allows people to decide whether they should apply or just keep scrolling. Inserting vague and absurd job titles such as rockstar, "ninja”, and "guru" will only keep the best candidates away from applying. It is also important to take note of the keywords and phrases that you will use for the first line, as they have to be easily searchable. 

Introduction 

Your introduction should be attention-grabbing and catchy. But how is it possible to draw someone’s attention in just a few lines? It is important to list all the crucial details that make your company stand out, such as your core values, company culture, and mission statement. If you can sum up all of this company information in just a few sentences, then potential hires can see the value proposition in your advertisement. Your introduction simply provides potential applicants with an overview of what it is like to work for your company. Thus, it is important to show off what makes you unique and what makes it enjoyable to work in your organisation. 

Role Responsibilities

This element is primarily focused on mentioning all the main duties and tasks that you expect the new hire to perform. Despite the need to be more specific in this part of the job ad, it is important to keep it concise. Long job descriptions often keep out potential candidates, especially the busiest ones. Thus, make sure to only highlight the most important day-to-day activities and showcase the overall workplace environment through them. 

Requirements 

For every role, there are certain requirements that can be non-negotiable or negotiable. It is essential to specify which of the skills or capabilities are “must-haves” and which are “nice to haves”. Focus only on the most necessary hard skills and experiences, followed by a few of the secondary traits that you would appreciate. 

Benefits and Salary Range 

Money is probably the most important reason why job seekers look for a job. It can help you market your job vacancy to better target your audience when you have all the benefits and salary ranges found in your job ads. It not only helps you get more potential candidates, but it can also help you find the perfect match for your offer. Name important information, such as health insurance perks, extra PTO, or personalised employee training and development plans. 

Where to Advertise Your Job Ads 

So, you have created the perfect job advertisement. Now what? 

If you are a recruiter who does not know how to get started, then your confusion is very valid. As there are a plethora of methods and tools available to market and advertise your job ads, it is important that you pick out the one that works best for you and your team. 

As brands have come to transition with digitalisation and the emergence of social media, recruiters should be able to identify these changes in trends to aid them in recruitment operations and decision-making. Here are some of the recruitment advertisement methods that are useful for any type of job opening: 

Internal Job Posting

Most recruiters view internal job postings as one of the oldest tricks in the book. Being a cost-effective and quicker process, promoting jobs internally among your existing employees is a great way to express an employer’s fairness towards their employees by enhancing their current workforce’s productivity. Internal recruitment promotes employee relations as managers learn more about their employees’ skill sets and help them advance their careers. 

Employee Referral  

Most times, there are job vacancies that cannot be filled by your existing employees. Thus, the need to broaden the talent pool by asking your employees for referrals, which can be incentivized to be more effective, might be the best option. Employee referral programmes can help employers reduce their recruitment costs, optimise their talent acquisition process, and find employees that fit better into the company’s culture. It also helps companies gain access to passive candidates who are not actively searching for a job but possess great skills needed by the organisation.

Social Media Platforms

In a world where everything is put on social media, it is no surprise that almost all the big social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even YouTube, offer great advertising platforms. Through these platforms, you can advertise interesting ad copies for your vacancies to draw the attention of applicants. 

However, as these platforms can be teeming with people with various credentials, it is important to target the right audience. LinkedIn and Facebook offer target marketing options that allow you to filter applicants based on location, qualifications, and even interests. This can help narrow down potential candidates for your job openings. In today’s time, social media has always been one of the most important trends that recruiters should always take into consideration. 

Video Advertisements

It has been found that video content posted on social media gets 1200% more engagements and traffic than other content, such as images and texts. Because of this, most companies make it a point to include videos in their marketing plans because of the conversion rate. 

Company Website

A lot of top-notch candidates see the value of legitimate job postings. Therefore, your company’s website is one of the ways that you can draw in potential candidates or people who can make referrals. Consider adding a “Jobs” or “Careers” section to your website, especially if your company regularly hires. Some companies also ought to create a separate landing page, especially for one-time job openings.

Proven Strategies to Boost Your Job Ads

Job advertisements have the power to attract great candidates, especially those with niche skills and sectors. Thus, with various platforms available for great candidates to apply to, it is essential for recruiters to create effective, attention-grabbing job ads to impede the waning of their success. Try out these strategies to boost your job ads: 

Understandable Job Titles

Time and time again, recruiters have emphasised the importance of easily understandable job titles. It is better to use commonly understood job titles to avoid readers scrolling past your ad. The use of jargon terms may come off as formal or cool; however, it may damage the overall response rate of your ad. Most job seekers look for something that they know they can perform, and that starts with something they can clearly understand. 

Supportive Language

Language and tone can alter how your job ads are perceived by readers. Given that job ads can show off your company culture, it is important to use language and tone that projects your company culture. In fact, LinkedIn has found that posts with an overly casual tone tend to perform less well than generic or formal posts. 

Supportive language means that your job ads tell candidates what they need to do in the role and how the organisation will help them do it. On the other hand, a demanding tone only lets the candidate know what skills and experience are needed to excellently do the job. Remember that the focus of your ad should lean more towards employee benefits and not solely on just the employer's demands. 

Use You, Your, and Yours

Aside from using supportive and inclusive language in writing your job ads, make use of “you” when referring to your candidate. This allows you to humanise your candidates in the virtual space. So, instead of them being a faceless applicant, it makes them feel valued, as your job ads can personally connect to them. 

Keywords in Bold 

Highlighting some key points is also an essential part of boosting your job ad. Putting the keywords in bold will improve your applications. As some quality candidates do not have the luxury of time to fully read all job advertisements on a certain platform, it will be easier for them to gauge whether a specific job advertisement appeals to them while knowing whether they fit the job. 

In recent research, job ads containing keywords in bold, such as for skills or benefits, have more applications than those job ads without. 

Images

Images have always been an important element of job posts, especially in this digital age. 51% of job seekers believe that they would be more likely to get attracted to a company with job postings that incorporated visual elements. 

Including visuals in job postings can help candidates quickly and easily digest the contents of a job ad. This not only saves their time but also helps them to determine whether the role is what they are looking for. It is also important to ensure that all included images reflect positively on your company, as quality visuals will create an excellent first impression.

Boost Your Hiring Experience! 

Recruitment processes tend to differ in different companies. However, being successful in recruitment starts with an interesting job ad. 

Enhancing your hiring experience through job advertisements is not a simple walk in the park. From engaging with candidates and turning them into brand ambassadors. So, when the going gets rough, it only makes sense to find help.

This is where Placed.au comes in.

Placed.au is led by recruitment industry experts that can boost your hiring processes for you, so you would not have a hard time doing it yourself. With Placed.au, you are sure to explore new ways to promote your job advertisements and help you get in the right direction towards placing the perfect candidate for your job vacancy. 

Register as an employer today!