Are your vacancies not attracting the right candidates?

A job advert packed with job requirements rarely attracts the right candidates. Four things that we use in practice, and why they work.

1. Write for the candidate, not from the company's perspective

Most job adverts are written from the perspective of the employer: a list of requirements and expectations. But what does the candidate get in return?

Turn it around. What is your ideal candidate looking for in a job, and what do you offer that someone else doesn't? In today's market, you don't just choose the candidate; the candidate also chooses you. Anyone who only sets demands will lose out to the employer who offers something.

2. Use previous results to improve your job vacancy

Compare the job postings you placed earlier with the response they generated. If you still have too few of those, use the elements where we consistently see a positive effect:

• A clear and engaging job title, such as “Creative Marketer” instead of just “Marketer”.
• Explanation of why this role matters and how it contributes to the company.
• At least a salary range, with a justification of when a candidate falls where in that range. The latter is more important than mentioning the range itself: without justification, everyone assumes the bottom end.
• Video or photos, so that a candidate gets an idea of where they will be working.

3. Personalise the application experience

Following your application, you want as many suitable candidates as possible at the table. Every unnecessary step between application and interview costs you candidates, and these are not just random candidates: precisely the people with a job and a busy life are the first to drop out.

So ensure a short and clear process, and keep people informed of their status. Automated messages via WhatsApp work well for that, also for pre-qualifying candidates. That saves you and the candidate time.

4. Recruitment is also a matter of numbers

A job advert that nobody sees does not exist. The more suitable people that lay eyes on your vacancy, the greater the chance that the right one is among them. And that means more than just LinkedIn and industry-specific job boards.

• Don't post your vacancy exclusively on job boards, because there you're competing with all other vacancies at the same time.
• Facebook and Instagram have 7 million and 5 million daily users respectively in the Netherlands, and LinkedIn about 1 million. For reach, therefore, Facebook, Instagram and Google Ads are a logical addition.
• “My candidate is not on Facebook” is something we often hear. In practice, higher-level and hard-to-fill positions also turn out to yield candidates there.

Furthermore, that last route reaches a group that you do not encounter on job boards at all: people who are not actively searching but are open to something else. How large that group is can be found in the article about passive jobseekers.

Where to begin

Write your job advert for the candidate, learn from what previous job adverts yielded, remove the redundant steps from your application process and ensure enough people see the advert. In that order, because more reach on a job advert that doesn't appeal mainly results in more dropouts.