How to write recruitment ads to reach those we really care about? What information are potential employees looking for? Salary range is not everything. We provide a recipe for good and effective job advertisements in IT.
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Until now, job advertisements could include many important aspects: beautifully constructed sentences maintained in an official tone, the necessary language etiquette, flowery language, stylistics appropriate to the company's character, mention of fruits in the office, but not... specifics. Anna Piwowarska in the cult book Authenticity Attracts wrote about how the hunger for authenticity will soon dominate public space. The first signs of this have already appeared in the recruitment market. More and more IT industry advertisements contain information about salary ranges. The trend initiated by this sector has triggered a wave of transparency. What are candidates really looking for?
Prepare for the fact that creating a recruitment advertisement is not just writing a few sentences to read. It's designing persuasive content, tailored to the needs of the reader. Its goal is to present values as simply as possible and encourage important life changes. Stylistics doesn't matter much here. The study The Economist Group, Missing the Mark: Global Content Survey of Brand Marketers and their B2B Audiences showed that 71% of content resembling typical, sales slogans does not affect the audience at all. The probability that a user will click on a banner ad on a page is 0.04%, and the chance of being struck by lightning is 0.03%.
Designing content tailored to the needs of candidates in a given field is definitely facilitated by tools that allow you to track the most frequently searched keywords. For example, according to Google AdWords, the term engineer has less search potential than developer. Although we know that there are many differences between the above positions, why not name the engineer's advertisements in a way that positions them better? Specific tasks can be specified in the description. In a world so full of information, we must assume that not everyone is aware of the differences between positions until they read the content of the offer.
You will also learn about the interests of the target group thanks to other analytical tools such as Google Trends or Chat GPT. If you haven't used this tool yet, start from the beginning. When you don't know something or are wondering how to describe something, use OpenAI. This way you will be able to generate effective content faster.
In the era of TikTok, our ability to concentrate is decreasing. Even in the heyday of Facebook's popularity, there was a struggle to capture the user's attention and search for the recipe for the perfect scroll-stopper. The inverted pyramid principle seems to be applied to an increasing number of texts. What is supposed to catch our attention is located at the top of the article, because most readers... don't make it to the very bottom.
Let's see how long it takes candidates on average to familiarize themselves with specific sections. We read the job description in 26 seconds, the company in 23 seconds, the requirements in 15 seconds, and the entire advertisement in 77 seconds if it is matched, and in 50 seconds if it is not (Paweł Zdziech, Recruitment advertisement. How to dress a job offer in IT in convincing words? HR Masterclazz).
These statistics all the more encourage reflection on how to create advertisements that will really encourage candidates to click Apply.
To describe the tendencies in human cognitive abilities, Małgorzata Lisowska-Magdziarz uses the metaphor of electric eels. Our constant contact with short, intense, sensory-stimulating, strong emotion-evoking and devoid of deeper intellectual content messages makes it increasingly difficult to assimilate texts that do not keep up with the pace of media culture. How to break through this noise in a job advertisement?
Firstly, use employer branding elements. Add photos showing the team, people at work, in the office or during company events. It is also worth including product graphics (in the case of companies creating applications or SaaS). Don't have your employees' consent to publish their photos online? Use stock photos (you can download them for free from sites like: shutterstock.com, pixabay.com, freepik.com). Using a human face in the ad will increase its authenticity and at the same time the candidate's trust. If possible, also add a video or reel. Take care of visual consistency. For this purpose, add brand color elements to the graphics. Last but not least, provide social proof: share customer successes and good opinions of both current employees and users commenting on your online activities.
Exactly. Although it will sound like a truism, we don't want to waste time when the game is not worth the candle. Until recently, we were talking about why it is worth publishing an approximate salary amount. Uncertainty seems to increasingly dominate the spaces we move in. Providing salary ranges has been becoming more and more common for several years, and soon it will be a requirement. According to the European Commission directive of 24.04.2023, companies in the EU will be obliged to provide information on the salary range in the job advertisement. Now let's talk about how to prepare to provide ranges, how to set them and what mistakes to avoid.
The salary range should be determined according to the experience, skills, average salaries and location expected in the advertisement. After all, we are looking for a specific specialist, not an entire team. The same applies to salary ranges.
What mistakes to avoid? The salary proposed in the offer must match the pay grid in force in the company. Such a list should be made public to all employees. This document will allow you to avoid any misunderstandings that could arise if one of your employees considered the rate proposed in the advertisement to be unfair in relation to his salary.
The salary range should not be too wide. An experienced specialist, who currently earns about 16 thousand, will raise a red flag on an advertisement offering from 10 to 25 thousand. Fearing that he will be offered an amount closer to the lower limit, he will not be interested in even reading the advertisement. Therefore, a good practice is to match the salary offer to the level of experience and market averages.
Secondly, both the lower and upper limit of the salary range should be defined. Let's assume that the rate is from 10 thousand upwards. The candidate will have false hopes for 15 thousand, and it may turn out that this is beyond the company's budget. By giving both limits, you avoid negative experiences of candidates.
Do not combine seniority. Many advertisements cover several levels of experience at once. Recruiters are looking for juniors and seniors in one advertisement. Such practice naturally increases the width of the salary range, and the recipient of the offer is not clearly specified.
With the help of publicly available tools, you can measure the average salaries for specific positions (not only in IT!). Use such websites as: wynagrodzenia.pl, pensjometr.pl, bulldogjob.pl, inhire.io, or nofluffjobs.com.
In most guides, you will find tips that the title should include: job title, company, industry, possibly location. However, what does the job title tell us in a world where a marketing specialist has many faces? This is exactly the question a colleague recently asked me:
- We are looking for someone for marketing. Would you have someone to recommend?
- What specific marketing are you talking about? Performance, inbound, outbound, content, events, social media, employer branding?
And this is not the only case. It is impossible not to mention here the position of "office worker", which seems to be a logical misunderstanding. We can certainly say that most intellectual workers will also be office workers. Although who knows what really lies under this name?
In IT, the matter is complicated by the fact that the concept of a programmer includes positions from at least 20 fields. A programmer is not equal to a programmer and even more so the title "We are looking for a good programmer" or "Programmer/IT specialist" will not be effective.
An example of good practice in creating job ad titles is to compose it from the most common search criteria, which the NFJ guide lists. To simplify the matter, I suggest the formula: Clickability of Title = Location Technology Category Experience Position. So: instead of Marketing Specialist - Senior TikTok Video Creator (Warsaw), instead of Senior Programmer/IT Specialist - Remote Senior Java Backend Developer, instead of Analyst - Junior Business Analyst (Krakow)
The job offer description should contain information relevant to candidates. According to a report from the No Fluff Jobs job advertisement portal, before a candidate applies for a position, they look for opinions about the employer on the internet (71%), used technologies and methodology (62%), information about the industry and the size of the company (55%). Candidates also list among the criteria the type of services produced, organizational culture, implemented projects, mission and company values.
What are candidates interested in in advertisements? The job board report shows that as many as 87% of users are looking for information about salary, conditions and form of employment (83%), tasks and responsibilities in a given position (82%), location (78%) and required technologies (74%). Similar conclusions come from the pracuj.pl study. However, benefits, recruitment stages, team and opportunities for self-improvement (career paths, project descriptions) are also important aspects.
So how to write about requirements? Divide them into mandatory and nice to have. List the programming languages without which it will not be possible to take up work in a given position. Indicate programs, tools, methodologies and soft skills. Be careful with the latter. Advertisements often feature Communication skills, which is not always understandable to candidates. If you require soft skills for specific tasks, describe this in the duties. Sometimes flexibility is more important than salary itself. So do we let employers off the hook on the issue of remuneration, who are honest, transparent and understanding towards us?
The most important rule when creating a benefits section is: list what you offer to the employee that is not your duty. Divide the list into additional benefits and what the candidate will find for themselves in the office space.
Think about what is added value for your employees. You can ask them to fill out a short survey and answer the question of what they value most in their workplace. Maybe it turns out that you didn't notice the biggest advantages!
Try to avoid repeating phrases from other employers' advertisements. The competition in the job market is high, and what stands out will attract the attention of candidates. The concrete strategy will allow you to present the offer to the candidate in detail already at the stage of creating the advertisement. Instead of insurance and health care, give the name of the insurer and private clinic, and instead of a training budget, describe which platforms or courses your organization uses.
For example, let's cite the case of Starbucks here, which owes its success, among other things, to the original naming of coffee sizes, e.g. venti, not large (Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business).
Do not offer obvious aspects over which you have no control or which are controversial. Sometimes advertisements include such additions as a family atmosphere, endless amounts of coffee, delicious tea, or the opportunity to achieve professional goals. If you can, boast about a creatively designed office space. Although this is not a type of non-financial benefit, it is an important element indicating the organizational culture and your care for employees.
Job advertisements are a special genre of text, requiring from the creator not only knowledge of the position, but also copywriting, sales, as well as the ability to operate with the language of benefits and persuasion. To create an attractive advertisement that will attract candidates, familiarize yourself with the position, target group, and market realities. When writing an advertisement, follow a few rules: first, formulate the title so that it contains the main keywords most often searched by candidates. Secondly, in the content of the advertisement, describe aspects that, according to research, are of the most interest to candidates. Finally, remember to be honest, transparent, respectful and flexible. Candidates will appreciate this.
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