4 top tips for crafting a successful job advert

Your job advert is your first chance to attract talented candidates to your vacancy, so it’s important that you get it right. A strong job advert will stand you in good stead for receiving the most relevant and high quality applications and will help to streamline your recruitment process.

There are a number of small steps you can take to ensure you’re crafting an enticing and successful job advert. We outline these below.

1. Include all key information

This might seem self-explanatory, but you’d be surprised how often those important details are forgotten. To ensure that you have included all relevant information, consider what it is that a job hunter wants to know. Candidates are searching for jobs with a set of criteria in mind, and your job advert is your chance to show that you’re ticking all the right boxes.

The job role and development opportunities are key priorities for most professionals, so make sure you include a list the daily responsibilities and outline opportunities for progression where you can. Company culture is also important to candidates, so take this opportunity to sell your business. Why should they want to work for you? What perks do you have on offer?

If you’re asking for a certain level of experience or qualifications, be sure to specify whether this is mandatory or advantageous. If a candidate is confused as to whether they fit the requirements or not, they may not apply. This could cost you potentially great recruits.

Finally, include the salary, or at the very least, a salary bracket. Pay packets are important to professionals. In fact, recent research from CV-Library revealed that over half of UK workers (58.1%) consider salary to be their top career priority.

With this in mind, many may be put off applying to a job if they have no clue what they’ll be getting paid. Similarly, you don’t want to invest time interviewing a candidate, only to find out in the final stages that they want a much higher salary than you can offer.

2. Make sure it’s clear and concise

One in five candidates (20%) said they wouldn’t apply for a role with an unclear job description. So it’s vital you consider the layout of your advert. Break it up into smaller, more digestible paragraphs. You should also use bullet points to list the daily responsibilities and break up the requirements section in a similar way.

What’s more, you need to ensure your advert is clear and makes sense. That means no spelling or grammar mistakes! Research tells us that this is also a huge turnoff for candidates, so be sure to give your advert a good proofread before you post it. It’s always helpful to have someone else read over this as well, just to be sure.

3. Consider the language you’re using

When writing a job advert, it can be tempting to include a bunch of industry lingo or buzzwords. After all, if you’re applying to the job you should really know what it means, right? But littering your posts with jargon can have a negative impact, as it can make the description unclear. So it’s best to avoid using too many buzzwords.

Not only this, avoid the temptation to be ‘unique’. You may think this could help you to stand out from your competitors, but in reality, it could make your job advert harder to find. If you’re looking for a sales executive, make sure that’s what you’re asking for. Trying to be too creative with your language or job titles can make it harder for candidates to find your vacancies.

4. Optimise with key words

Following on from the previous point, it’s important to understand the difference between stuffing your advert with buzzwords and optimising it with keywords. Keywords make your job posting more searchable, so this includes the job title, location, industry specific terms and tools or skills that a candidate may need.

Use industry and occupation specific words to ensure you’re attracting relevant candidates. For example, in the case of a sales executive, you may use key words such as: cold calling, targets, sales, B2B and B2C, communication, upselling, contracts.

Remember, these are not buzzwords, these are helpful terms that outline the responsibilities, soft skills and hard skills that a sales executive may need.

Getting your job advert right from the start is the best way to increase applications and ensure you’re attracting talented and relevant candidates. Putting thought into the layout and the language you’re using to produce a clear and concise advert is key. Follow these simple steps to crafting a successful advert and you’ll be able to fill your vacancies in a more cost and time effective manner.

CV-Library is the UK’s leading independent job board, offering job posting and CV searching. For more expert advice visit their Recruitment Insight pages.