You’ve heard me talk about “readability” in job descriptions recently. It’s vital. I now think of readability as one of the 3 main levers for writing a more effective job description (the other 2 are gender-neutrality and positive sentiment). The more readable your job descriptions, the higher the apply rates (we’ve measured this with machine learning)…. Read more »
Entrepreneur Magazine once wrote about how the job descriptions my Ongig software created for our clients caused candidates to spend up to 5 minutes and 23 seconds viewing the ad (more than 6X the time spent on typical job ads at the time). At the heart of this high candidate engagement is what I call… Read more »
Are you using an EEO statement like below? There are a few reasons that the above EEO statement is less effective at attracting candidates/diversity. It’s: Too long. At 64 words, it’s a tough read Not punchy (21 words per sentence) (8 to 13 would be better) More likely to offend (it’s tough to keep track… Read more »
I wrote recently about The Top 10 Problems TA Leaders Tell Me About. Job Descriptions was the #1 category. Note: Check out our free Job Descriptions Guide — it tells you everything we know about JDs, job ads and the like! This week I’m sharing the specific problems within job descriptions that TA leaders reach… Read more »
How good is your diversity statement? I asked my team to send me some of the best diversity statement samples they could find. They reviewed the Fortune 100 Best Workplaces for Diversity list and also Googled “Most Diverse Companies”. They gave me a list of 30 diversity statements they found. I whittled that down to 10 that… Read more »
I’m a white man — so what do I know about diversity? Perhaps not as much as you. But I’ve studied it. Closely. My super-niche Ongig business has one focus: job descriptions. And Ongig has built diversity tools to make your jobs gender-neutral, higher in positive sentiment and more readable. Our software helped 4X the… Read more »
My job is awesome. I chat with talent acquisition leaders most of the day, and then I work with the Ongig team to create software to (hopefully) solve those problems! About a year ago, I started a spreadsheet of the problems TA leaders shared with me. I decided to now share them with you —… Read more »
Thank you to the 15,000+ people who read my 10 Samples of an Effective EEO Statement. Let’s dig deeper into the readability of EEO statements! Did you see how an effective job ad should be written at the 8th grade or lower? Were you as surprised as me at the power of writing in Plain English for busy… Read more »
The goal of a job posting is simple. It’s to capture the right candidate’s attention with truthful content to help them decide whether to apply. Note: Check out our free Job Descriptions Guide — it tells you everything we know about writing job descriptions! What if I told you I could improve the effectiveness of your… Read more »
Only 20% of candidates click apply on your job postings (see the “Hiring Funnel” section of this ERE article. for the full funnel). So what about the other 80% who did not apply? How many great candidates simply “got away”? One reason the 80% don’t apply is that you didn’t show the right job to them…. Read more »
There’s one thing that every growing employer has in common: job descriptions. And they have lots of problems/projects related to job descriptions. Talent acquisition leaders ask me/Ongig for help: adding video and pics to their job descriptions; adding recruiting widgets (LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Google Maps, etc.) to their job descriptions; rewriting their JDs to be more outward-facing;… Read more »
Many of you gave a ton of love to our 5 Ways to Be a More Proactive Recruiter article. It was written by my good friend Jason Webster, an expert on proactive recruiting strategy. I decided you might want a sequel! And congrats! Since you’re reading this I know you are already a more proactive recruiter… Read more »
If you need to write better job descriptions, there are a few great free tools to use. If a free tool isn’t getting you what you need for writing job descriptions, check out Ongig’s Text Analyzer. 1. Hemingway App Just copy and paste your job description text into Hemingway and you can see things like:… Read more »
Are your job descriptions consistent? If not, you risk confusing candidates and causing more work for your hiring managers and recruiters. Consistent job descriptions can also cut time-to-fill — specifically, the time it takes to get from req to candidate screenings (which can easily take 3+ weeks). Here are a few ways to have more… Read more »
Most company career sites have crappy job search capabilities (see Company Career Site Job Search is Likely Dead). And crappy job search = crappy candidate experience. Some of you have told me you sometimes can’t even find your own open reqs on your career site! Ouch! But you might not know about another problem: how… Read more »
