Shawnee Love   •   April 26, 2018

Recruiting feels a lot like online dating.

In fact, I encourage you to keep that connection in mind when you are recruiting, because you absolutely should be creating a posting which is appealing to the types of people you want to attract.  Your posting should also be true although obviously not a complete and in-depth report on the reality of the job (any more than an online dating profile is a complete record of the individual it represents).

Appealing and truthful job postings are the third pillar of candidate experience, the subject of my current blog series.

What constitutes appealing?

Always remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Its up to you to figure out what is appealing about your job and organization and articulate that in your ads.

Hint: Although everyone is different, research has shown that there are some common things employees of all generations and backgrounds appreciate.  For a summary, check out this article on retaining employees from our blog library.

What constitutes truthful?

Truthful is the truth.  Maybe not the whole and complete truth (because we don’t have time for all that in an ad), but certainly not information which is false or is going to misrepresent the reality or mislead a candidate in some way.  If you are worried the truth won’t be attractive to candidates, the solution isn’t false advertising, its finding ways to be more appealing.

For example, the bright side of a job involving hard physical labour might be “no need for a gym membership”.  The bright side of a company with limited opportunity for career growth might be “a close-knit family feel“.

If you can’t come up with your job or company’s “bright side”, consider paying a really high wage and talk about the great pay in the ad.

Finally, I want to point out that a job posting doesn’t always have to be a written online posting.  Part of appealing means your job “postings” are in the places and delivered in the fashion that your desired candidates need in order to become aware of your job opening.  Some of the usual ways to advertise jobs include:

• Online ads (job posting boards like indeed.ca, your company website, or through social media like facebook, linked in, youtube, instagram or twitter),
• Print ads (in magazines, periodicals and newspapers),
• Sandwich boards,
• Employee referrals & internal bulletin boards and communication methods,
• Giant Now Hiring ribbons hung on your building or outdoor billboards, and
• Radio ads.

But you can be as creative as you want.  Want a great example?  Check out Sodastream’s hiring video on youtube.  Warning, its only going to appeal to the creative, fast, brave and optimistic among you. If you want pessimistic, boring, plodding and cowardly, you have to do a way different ad!