Job Advertisement: How to Write a Good One!

If you truly want to attract top talent to your company, it is well worth the time spent on tweaking your job advertisements. A job description is not the same thing as a job advertisement. A job description is a list of duties an employee will perform. The job advertisement is a marketing piece you use when advertising a job opening to attract top talent.

A well written job advertisement includes:

Company Description

This is an overview of what your company does, what industry you are in, how long you have been in business, exciting growth, and types of customers you serve.

What the Employee Will Do

Here is where you may want to include the duties from the job description, but that list won’t serve you well. Instead, a future employee wants to know what they will be able to accomplish and contribute. Take your list of duties and turn them into active statements. What they will accomplish and what the end goal looks like? For example, a receptionist may have a job duty of “answering phones.” Instead this could read as “create a warm and inviting environment for all customers greeted both in person and via the phone.”

Job Requirements

This list should be short and only include the requirements that are absolutely essential. It is ideal if your requirements list in your job advertisement is skills based and speaks to the challenges this job will present. For example “extensive knowledge of Excel pivot tables and v-lookups” speaks to the level of analytical complexity the right candidate will have.

The Right Personality

Include a blurb about the soft skills which lend to success in this role. It may read like this if you are seeking a self-starting, team player “You see what needs to be done, and you do it, without needing to be told. You love being part of a team doing whatever it takes to meet a common goal of company success!”

Company Wow’s

Let the world know why your company is awesome. Do you have any special benefits or perks? These would be the things your employees talk about:

  • Free lunch on Fridays
  • Stocked snacks in the kitchen
  • 100% paid healthcare benefits
  • Lots of holidays or PTO
  • Generous retirement plan contribution
  • Bonus eligibility
  • Gym or cafeteria located in the building or nearby
  • Ability to work remotely on occasion
  • A commitment to really working only a 40-hour work week
  • Awesome management team that actually listens or simply amazing people who like to work as a team.

Even if you don’t offer any “special” perks, there are still reasons why people like working there – ask your existing employees if you are not sure what to include.

Why all this matters

In the current market, candidates have choice as well as access to lots of information about prospective employers (think Glassdoor or Google News searches). Knowing they desire this information, it is best to provide them much of this information upfront in the job advertisement. Ideally, your job ad is complete enough the candidates feel compelled to apply without additional research.

By Tiffany Appleton

Director, Accounting & Finance Division