Here’s how to do job postings right

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Chances are you have a terrible process for job postings. If you want to attract talent to your business, you need to change it up, advised an expert.

The job posting is an advertisement for your company. Just as the burger restaurant down the street wants to entice you to come and eat there, you need to attract people to work for your company. Excite them; don’t be boring, said Linda Brenner, managing director and founder of Talent Growth Advisors.

“If you’re posting jobs, don’t write these long, formal, boring [legalese] job descriptions that someone gave you,” she said at NAPA Expo 2022 during her presentation, Winning in the “New Normal” Talent Marketplace.

“Nobody is going to read that; you and I wouldn’t write that. But, definitely, younger people in the marketplace that have a very short attention span are not going to read that either.”

Another issue is secrecy. Stop leaving candidates in the dark or guessing about important things they want to know about, like pay and hours.

“A lot of our clients are super cagey about: How much are we paying? What does ‘part-time’ mean? What are the shifts?” Brenner lamented.

She gave an example of a construction company she was working with that couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t get qualified people for a job. The problem was that even though they told candidates the shift starts at 5 a.m., they didn’t mention they’d give the successful candidate a higher hourly pay.

“If you don’t advertise what you want it’s just going to be a big, gigantic waste of time. So talent wants clear information,” Brenner said. “We have nothing gained by pretending we’re paying more than we’re not or not telling people what we’re paying. Embrace it.”

So it’s essential to tell candidates what you want, what the role is, what hours they’ll work, what flexibility there is and so on.

“If you’re paying $11 an hour, say that in the job ad. Balance that with other stuff — hopefully, you have other stuff that’s good that you can also promote like, you have paid health insurance to some extent or you have career development opportunities or you have tuition reimbursement, whatever else,” she added. “Just tell people what you have going on for you.”