How to Write a Job Posting

How to Write a Job Posting That Stands Out and Gets Results

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Open position or new position, you need to hire someone sooner rather than later. With the proliferation of job boards and social media, it’s easier than ever to find your next employee. Simply throw up the posting and viola! Dozens upon dozens of candidates arrive in your inbox.

Except, that doesn’t seem to work. Yes, candidates apply, but they aren’t the caliber you hoped for. Or, worse, no one applies for the job. It’s a great position with extensive opportunities at an amazing company! Why isn’t this working?

A Job Posting is Not the Same as a Job Description

A common mistake many employers make is thinking that posting the job description is all they need to do. After all, the job description tells job seekers everything they need to know about the position.

That’s true. However, a job posting and a job description are not the same things. While they both play a pivotal role in your recruitment efforts, a job posting and a job description serve different purposes.

A job description helps candidates (and employees) gain a deep understanding of their role. A well-written job description summarizes the essential duties of the position and defines possible career paths for that role. Job descriptions also explain what success looks like and how that success is measured.

Job descriptions are also kind of boring. They are long and have to cover, in great detail, every aspect of the job. This includes minor details (attend all required department meetings) and other menial aspects of the role (the amount of education the employee must have, or the dreaded “additional duties as assigned”).

A job posting, on the other hand, is an advertisement. Well-written advertisements catch your audience’s attention and get them interested in the product. In this case, the product is your company and the open job.

Your job advertisement should catch candidates’ attention and convince them to apply for your job. While you don’t want to oversell the position, a job posting highlights the most compelling and interesting aspects of the job, enticing job seekers to apply for your open position.

How to Write a Job Posting That Gets Results

Writing a fantastic job posting isn’t punchy phrases and exciting information. Creating a job posting that gets results also includes proper formatting, the right details, and tells a captivating story that makes candidates want to work for you.

Keep It Short

You may think it’s important to include as much information as possible in your job posting. After all, with more information, applicants will be better able to decide if they should apply for the role or not.

However, less is more when it comes to job posts. A LinkedIn study found that shorter job posts get more applicants. Postings between one and 300 words received 8.4% more applications than medium (301 to 600 words) or long (601 or more words) job posts.

Don’t Bury the Lede

Candidates spend, on average, between 14 and 30 seconds reviewing your job posting, which means you need to cover the most important aspects of the job as quickly as possible.

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Place the crucial elements of the position at the very top of the posting. A study by The Ladders tracked the eye movements of job seekers as they viewed job postings. The study found that subjects spent most of their time looking at the information at the top of the posting. However, job seekers were more likely to skim the bottom part of the job posting, so this is the place for the less important aspects of the job.

Use Bullet Points

Whenever you can, use bullet points to highlight and summarize the most important things you want potential applicants to know about the position. Here’s why:

  • Bullet points help break down complex concepts and make information easier to remember
  • Using bullets points helps applicants quickly scan your job posting to see if they have the skills you want
  • Candidates can easily see if the job and company offer the opportunities they want

Keep It Professional

Your job posting doesn’t have to use formal language (unless that’s on-brand for you). However, it shouldn’t be too informal, either. You need to find a happy medium of “professional yet casual.”

Job seekers are looking for a job. And, to most of them, that means a professional environment. Casual and friendly is OK, but professional is what most job seekers truly want in a job. The words you use in the posting will give job seekers clues as to how professional the office is.

For example, it’s fine to say, “We’re a dog-friendly office that offers catered lunches on Tuesdays, and has an in-office ping-pong league.” That description helps define your office culture and reveals some added perks in a few short statements. However, talking about the “awesome dudes and dudettes you’ll hang with all day,” doesn’t send a “professional yet casual” message about your office environment.

Stay in (Gender) Neutral

Choose gender-neutral terms to attract more applicants. Using the term “salesperson” instead of “salesman” or “saleswoman” signals to applicants that you are an inclusive office that values diversity, something many job applicants seek out.

Don’t Forget the Details

Job seekers crave transparency from employers these days. They don’t only want to know what the job offers, though. Applicants use the job posting to help them judge if there are long-term career possibilities at the company.

That doesn’t mean you should create long job postings in the name of transparency. However, if you want to entice more candidates to apply for your job openings, you’ll need to include some details about the job and the company.

One of the important details to include is salary information. A Glassdoor study found that 67% of job seekers want salary details in a job posting. And while revealing salary information upfront has its pros and cons, know that salary isn’t the only factor job seekers weigh when applying for a position.

What Else Can You Offer

Sometimes, you can’t offer a competitive salary. While there may be valid reasons for that (and nothing you can do about it), when that’s the case, talk about the other perks and benefits you can offer employees.

Many applicants don’t only care about salary. They also want health insurance, paid parental leave, and profit-sharing or retirement plans, so mention those benefits. And if those aren’t part of the package, maybe the company offers unlimited vacation or vested shares in the company. Whatever perks the company can offer, talk them up to help candidates understand what the company provides beyond a paycheck.

Include Deal Breakers

Also, include any deal breakers in the job posting. If the position requires a lot of regular travel or the candidate has to live within 30 miles of the main office, make sure you call out these crucial details. It’s better to be upfront and honest about the less than exciting aspects of the job than waiting until you offer the job, only to discover the candidate can’t travel at all.

Don’t Just Talk About the Job

Paint a compelling and interesting picture of the company using broad strokes. Explain why the company was founded, what its main goal is, and how it’s going to accomplish the goals. Is it a start-up that’s only just begun and is going to change the world? Or, is it a family-owned business that believes in doing right by the customers? Including this information helps applicants understand what opportunities they may have at the company and how the position plays a role in this story.

But Skip the Culture Talk

While culture and fit are very important, don’t spend too much time talking about office culture in the posting. You want an enticing job posting, not an endless one. Again, small hints are fine (dog-friendly, excellent work-life balance), but a two-paragraph summary about all the awesome perks you offer does not enhance the job posting. Keep it brief and send applicants to the website to learn more about the company culture.

Keep It Simple

A job posting that’s never seen by applicants will never get applied to. Optimize your job posting so it appears in applicant searches on job boards. Just like you might search job sites for candidates using specific keywords, applicants will search for jobs that match their search keywords.

Include common keywords that any applicant might use when you create the posting. For example, a sales job will likely include words like sales, marketing, client, customer, and other common terms. As tempting as it might be, try to stay away from uncommon or exciting terms. They may sound cool, but they decrease the odds that job seekers will find your job post.

For example, a job post for a “Marketing Genius” sounds pretty awesome. But, the odds are also pretty awesome that job seekers aren’t searching for open “Marketing Genius” positions. They are likely searching for “Marketing Coordinator,” Marketing Manager,” or “Director of Marketing” positions. If your job posting specifies “Marketing Genius” as the job title, it’s less likely your opening will show up in candidate search results—if at all—which means you may miss out on well-qualified candidates.

Stick with the basics to make it easier for candidates to find you. If you really need to mention “Marketing Genius,” you can, but only use it once or twice inside the job posting, not as the job title.

Define Success

These days savvy job seekers want more than a job. They want a career. So before they apply, job seekers want to know what a job can offer them beyond a salary or fun perks. They want to know that in five years they won’t be in the same position doing the same thing for a slightly larger salary.

You can’t define where someone will be in five years in a job posting. But you can define where someone should be within a year of starting the job. Describe clearly defined achievements they should reach in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, six months, and one year, so they have a good idea of what they can expect.

The goals don’t need to be extensive or detailed. A one-line description should be sufficient. For example:

  • At 30 days you will have met all the department heads and shadowed your mentor
  • At 60 days you’ve reviewed all operating manuals and completed internal training
  • At 90 days you’ll begin sales calls and establishing long-term relationships
  • By six months you’ll have an established client base
  • By one year you’ll have increased revenue by 10% and improved customer satisfaction reports by 12%

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