The most important question a candidate has is: “Why should I work for you?” The operative word is “why”. That’s why it’s surprising that the 4 most common sections of a job description focus almost entirely on answering the question “What?” Examples: Overview/Summary of Job — Most JDs use this to say “what” the position… Read more »
Posts Tagged:Job Descriptions
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Candidate Needs (for Job Ads)
I’m reading a great new book about winning political fights — it’s called The Fixer by Bradley Tusk. It reminded me of a powerful marketing tool (“self-interest”) to win over candidates through job ads. What’s a job candidate’s top self-interest? You could do worse than to use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I’ve transposed the normal Maslow… Read more »
How to Write Job Descriptions to Attract Millennials
Recruiting millennials is critical. Millennials (born 1982-2003) will make up 1 of 3 adults in America by 2020 and 75 percent of the workforce by 2025, according to the Brookings Report (see “How Millennials Could Upend Wall Street And Corporate America”). Veronica Wright, a CEO at ResumesCentre talked about hiring millennials recently: “The energy and… Read more »
Boost Your “Digital” Candidate Experience with Job Page Overlays
What is a Job Page Overlay? A job page overlay (or job wrapper) is a design layer you put over your applicant tracking system to generate new job pages. This makes your pages more engaging and attractive to candidates. You get a higher time on page and apply rate. Why Use a Job Page Overlay… Read more »
Top 15 Problems TA Pros Have with Job Descriptions
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! And, for more tips on writing job descriptions, check out How to Write a Job Description — Best Practices… Read more »
The Top 10 Problems TA Leaders Tell Me About
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 »
Why I Write my Job Postings at the 8th Grade Reading Level (or Lower!)
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 »
Is Now the Time to Hire a “Chief Job Description Officer” ?
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 »
22 Ideas to Make You a More Proactive Recruiter
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 »
The 8 Key Stakeholders in a Job Description Rewriting Project
A head of Talent Acquisition asked me the other day: “Who are the key stakeholders that need to be involved when rewriting job descriptions?” Here’s a quick-and-dirty list that might help you: 1)The Head of TA The head of TA should typically oversee this. If you’re lucky enough to have a head of recruitment marketing… Read more »
10 Tips for Writing Effective Job Descriptions
A few tips from my 20+ years of writing job descriptions: Note: If you’re lazy like me, a lot of the principles below are built into software such as these: The Top 6 Augmented Writing Tools for Job Descriptions. For more tips on writing job descriptions, check out How to Write a Job Description — Best Practices & Examples. Put First… Read more »
7 Easy Tips for Writing a More Effective Job Description
1. Job Description Length In our research, the optimal length of a written job description is 550 to 750 words. Many candidates lose interest after that. One exception to this: If your job description copywriting is truly incredible, you can get a quality candidate to read 1,000+ words. Note: Check out our free Job Descriptions Guide… Read more »
10 Examples of the Best Job Ads in 2017
Here are 10 examples of job ads worth looking at, whether you are revamping your own…or just looking for creative job ad ideas. Last year Ongig published 10 Awesome Job Descriptions and we are already seeing many companies (big and small) making vast improvements to their job ads which show you just how fast they are evolving. Some… Read more »
Taleo ATS Clients: You Can Still Have Great Looking Job Descriptions!
Digital candidate experience, employer branding, and talent attraction are becoming key initiatives in recruiting and talent acquisition. Yet many applicant tracking systems (like Taleo) are falling short in these areas. We’ll break down a generic/default Taleo job description and then show you a couple of employers (Taleo clients) who use a recruitment marketing platform to… Read more »
Hyatt Utilizes Recruitment Videos On Job Descriptions
Hyatt is using position-specific recruitment videos on job descriptions for key roles (see below). Recruitment videos on job pages is a great strategy for prioritized/key role job openings as we discussed in this article: video job descriptions engage the candidate and increase time on page. These videos aren’t limited by a long list of duties and… Read more »
