Writing A Job Advertisement: Here’s A How-To!

Writing a job advertisement can be difficult. If you don’t ask for the right abilities and characteristics, you’ll not get what you want.

Give the job title a very clear and simple title. You may be looking for a great sales person, but if your title says you’re looking for a “sales superstar,” many candidates will be turned off. Why? Because this doesn’t come off as a serious position, and the candidates that will apply to this job position may have over-inflated egos (as they believe they are superstars!)

Give a description of your business. You’re not there to fool someone into falling into your trap as a business owner. You want the person who applies to know exactly what company they’re applying to. Sure, you may be looking for an assistant manager, but if you say who you are and what you do, you’ll get candidates that have experience as assistant managers in that same field.

Write out expected tasks, especially the main ones. Potential candidates look at a list, reflect on their skills, and eliminate positions, which they feel are above their level of expertise. This way, you will get candidates applying, who know what to expect and feel they can do the job.

Define what qualities you are looking for in an employee. Say if you’re looking for a people person, a person who is logical, or a person who works well under pressure. If you are vague, anyone will apply and it’ll take you longer to eliminate those, who don’t qualify personality-wise.

Make sure your post is well written, not confusing, and not full of grammar and spelling errors. If you’re not careful in your own job ad, then you’ll get candidates who don’t care as much.

Finally, it’s important to post your job in the right category, on the right search engine, as well. Craigslist, Workopolis, and Monster are some of the big job search engines, but there are so many others out there, and some of them are industry specific or have a better reputation for postings in a certain category.

Have questions regarding job-ad posting and HR processes? Call us: 604.353.3134.