5 ways to optimize your job postings for cost savings and efficiency.

Canada's population is booming, fueled by unprecedented waves of immigration. Likewise, the employment rate has skyrocketed, tripling since the pre-pandemic era. Undeniably, the job market has been a whirlwind of unpredictability in recent months. Yet, amidst this chaos, companies continue to seek qualified candidates to fill their vacancies, though it may take a bit longer to locate and entice them. We understand this turbulent landscape all too well. However, we believe we’ve been doing something different to attract qualified Candidates. We know they are out there; we just need them to find us and persuade them to apply when they do.

Redefining Job Postings: More than Just Words

A well-crafted job posting is the most important talent attraction communication. It goes beyond outlining the responsibilities, duties, and expectations of a role—it's a gateway to capturing the attention of qualified Candidates. 
 

Job postings also have a significant impact on an employer's brand image. When carefully crafted, they become a showcase of the company's culture, values, and vision, magnetically attracting candidates who resonate with these core aspects. A well-established employer brand has the power to draw in top-tier talent, bolster the company's reputation, and pave the way for long-term success.

Welcome to TalentWorld: Where Recruitment Meets Marketing

At TalentWorld, we refuse to leave the fate of our job postings to chance. Instead, our recruiters “think like marketers” and treat our job postings like advertisements. By adopting this approach, we optimize the entire Candidate attraction journey. 

We unleash the true potential of our job postings, transforming them into compelling narratives that captivate and inspire the right Candidates to apply. With every word, we strive to create interest, inspire the curiosity of Candidates, and guide them on a path toward our Clients' opportunities.

And it works! Our Indeed Apply Rate in 2022 was twice the industry average—a trend that has been increasing every year since 2020. But how exactly did we do it? 

1. Personas and the Art of Storytelling

Before you even write your posting, it starts with a well-crafted persona. In marketing, personas are used to describe the typical consumer so that you can deliver the right message that convinces them to buy your product. 

It’s the same with creating job postings! A Recruiter’s job in finding the “perfect fit” starts with identifying what skills, qualifications, experience, and qualities will make them successful. And if you pair this with details about someone who is excelling in the role currently or who has in the past, you can develop a detailed persona. Which will help you identify what would motivate them to choose your role over hundreds of others like it.

For example: During the height of the pandemic, we were responsible for recruiting PSWs to support our most vulnerable citizens. But everyone with experience was already employed. Our recruitment team identified that a great fit for the PSW roles would be folks from the Hospitality industry. Why? Because they had the transferable skills we were looking for and they were available to work. With this in mind, we wrote our job posting to speak to anyone currently on layoff from bars and restaurants across the province, explaining the benefits of giving this career path a shot. We ended up hiring 80 PSWs in one week!

Rather than taking a broad approach, we recommend that Recruiters personalize the job offer for the people they’re trying to attract by writing copy that speaks to them. 

2. Key Words

The Recruiters of TalentWorld are also not strangers to the concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Part of persona identification is figuring out which words are being searched by the personas and which ones are going to be the ones that speak to them.

For example, many different job titles can be used for the job of a Warehouse Associate, including Warehouse Operator, Inventory Control Specialist, Logistics Associate, and the list can go on! Instead of choosing a title blindly and hoping for the best, our Recruiters use search data to see which title receives the most interest in each region. If you don’t have any tools to help you, you can use Indeed to see what other employers are using in your city. 

And it’s not just job titles that need some refining. Did you know that the language used in a job posting description can detract qualified candidates? By including inclusive job language, it can make sure all those that are qualified apply.

We also like to separate the “must haves” and the “nice to have” qualifications because we know that adding unnecessary qualifications can stop women from applying—it has been shown that men apply for jobs when they meet 60% of the qualifications, but women only apply if they meet them all. If you’re unsure whether your job postings are gender inclusive, you can use a free online gender decoder to get started. 

3. Format Optimization

Have you ever opened a job description and been immediately turned off by the number of words on the page? Just like how a Recruiter takes 6 seconds to scan a Candidate’s resume, the same is true for Job Seekers scanning a job posting. 

When someone is scanning your posting, they only have a few basic questions in mind that they want to be answered: Do I want the job? Am I qualified for it? 
That’s why when formatting a job posting, it’s best to leave out the fine details and just stick to a brief and simple overview of the job so it doesn’t feel overwhelming to the Job Seeker when they open it. 

A best practice is to have between 300-400 words per posting to make it easy for a Job Seeker to quickly scan the description and see if they’re qualified. We also recommend making use of other formatting options like using bullet points, bolded fonts, and underlined headers. These can also help split up different sections or help the job seeker see the main points first.

4. Be Where Your Audience Is

The last step of posting a job ad is making sure you’re where your audience is. All the hard work above doesn’t matter if you’re posting your job ad where your Candidates won’t come across them. The two first sites that come to mind are Indeed and LinkedIn, which is not surprising given these are the top job sites in Canada with 300 million monthly users and 700 million professionals using the app every week, respectively. But if you dig a little deeper, could there be other places to share your job? That are more targeted to your persona vs. where everyone begins their search.  

Facebook Community groups are a great place to get in front of a very targeted audience. Take our example of the PSW roles we recruited for. We found Facebook groups for hospitality workers in Montreal. This allowed us to get in front of the folks we believed had the right transferrable skills for the job. There are also many niche job boards and events that can help you find qualified people, particularly for tech roles. 

5. Measuring Results

So, you got your job ad up and running. But how do you know it was a success? When you have hundreds of applications? Or maybe when you’ve found the Candidate you were looking for?

At TalentWorld, data is our success indicator. 

Though we don’t expect our Recruiters to become data scientists overnight, we know that data is what drives results. That’s why our Recruiters are trained to know the basics to make sure they’re being as efficient as possible in their recruitment efforts.

Words like Click-Through Rates (CTR). Apply Rate, Cost Per Application (CPA), and Response Rates come to mind. If Recruiters set specific KPIs and view them constantly, they can identify what’s working and what isn’t to optimize their results. That’s how we’ve managed to stay agile in this unpredictable job market and define our success with an Indeed Apply Rate of 22%--above the industry average. 

Want to learn more about our Recruitment Marketing strategy which can teach you methods that optimize the Candidate journey? Download our playbook today to become an expert in Recruitment Marketing.