Shawnee Love   •  
January 25, 2012

I hate the fact that I have used blind recruitment ads. Blind ads are not fooling anyone. Candidates can be pretty sure that the company is running a blind ad, because the poor sap whose job is being advertised is still blithely working away. Unsurprisingly, candidates are suspicious of a company who will go behind their employee’s back to advertise the job, because we all wonder if the same could happen to us and knowingly participating in that process somehow taints us with the same morals or lack thereof.

We have empathy for the unsuspecting employee who is given no warning and little performance who suddenly is fired a day or so before the new guy is hired to take over.  It could be us.  I have also seen the poor unsuspecting employee become rightfully pissed off when he recognizes the blind job posting as his own job.  Can you say “backfire”?

If I haven’t convinced you that blind ads are sneaky, another reason to avoid blind ads is that top talent won’t send in an application to an unidentified company. If you have a strong brand you will get a better response rate and better quality of candidates if you identify your company in the recruiting ad.

Ban the blind recruitment ad.  Who is with me?