Writing Compelling Job Posts

At Job News we have a strict job staging process, which has revealed a number of good insights as to what makes a job posting more successful. Job postings that follow these best practices will typically generate more traffic to the posting itself. However, the biggest difference between a poorly composed job posting and a great one has to do with the quantity and quality of applicants!

A great job posting will get candidates excited about a company and the specific job. By clearly defining the work requirements, expectations, compensation and perks, job seekers are better able to determine their match with a given role.

• Clear formatting
  Like this document, a great job description will contain frequent line and paragraph breaks, as well as numbered and bulleted lists where appropriate.
• Sell the sizzle
  Most jobs have some aspect of the work that is compelling to the right job seeker, but too often job description copy is dry and unappealing. Capture the essence of what is good, fun and exciting about a given job or company, and highlight this content at the VERY TOP of the description. Just as your organization sells to your customers, it must sell each job to prospective applicants.
• Requirements
  If your organization has strict requirements for its candidates, clearly communicate these near the top of the posting.
• Pay range
  Every job seeker wants an idea of a job’s pay range prior to submitting their personal information. Even jobs with relatively
  low pay ranges tend to be more compelling when the true pay range is provided.
• Benefits
  Benefits are an important part of total compensation. Job News provides dedicated fields for the most popular benefits, and use of these fields highlights the selected benefits at the top of the posting. Include the complete set of benefits and use the dedicated fields.
• Descriptive job titles
  Job titles carry the most weight in job search algorithms, but they are often overlooked. A job title should never be an ad headline (such as “Bonus Pay for Top Drivers”) or an internal rank (such as “Auditor Level 3”). Rather, job titles should describe as much about the actual nature of the work as possible (such as “Long-haul Commercial Driver” or “Senior Consumer Banking Auditor”).
• Employer name
  In all but the most extreme situations, a job will elicit a better response when the employer name is shown. Avoid use of “company confidential” whenever possible.
• Rich keywords
  At Job News, we discovered that our search algorithm provides the best matches using job titles, employer names and keywords, but not the job description itself, so it is important to include a number of good keywords for a given position. Keywords should include alternate job titles (e.g. “Driver” for the job title Owner Operator), competitors (e.g. “Twitter” for a job at Instagram) and certifications (such as MSW, RN, CDL A, MBA, CFA, etc.). Note that some of our partners do not take our keywords from us, so these important keywords should be utilized in the job description copy, as well.
• Optimum post length
  Job descriptions can be too long, but more commonly they are too short to be informative and compelling. The preferred range for a post is 400 – 700 words (about 2500 – 4500 characters including spaces). Pro tip: In the bottom of our post-a-job form, we show characters used as you type. Alternately, use MS Word or Google Doc tools to get a word count before you paste copy into your
  job description.
• Skills and qualifications
  These are important to include, but overly long lists can make a job feel onerous and unappealing. Keep qualifications to an honest minimum. For example, 90% of jobs require “good written and verbal communications skills.” Superfluous or “stock” job copy should be excluded.
• Avoid typos
  Proof all posts using spell-check.

  Using these simple techniques is proven to improve both applicant response and applicant quality.