8 tips on how to improve your job ads to attract more IT candidates in 2021
The amazing candidate experience begins the moment the candidate sees your job offer and decides to apply. Nowadays when you have just a couple seconds to grab your readers’ attention and the whole recruitment is online, it is crucial to prepare an eye-catching job offer that attracts great people you want to work with you. Find out how to do so.
It’s harder than ever to attract and engage well matched candidates. Especially in the IT sector. Your job ad must be catchy, quick to read and interesting. Engage the candidate with your company’s culture and it will pay off. This brief guide provides you with the top 8 tips for creating job offers that convert visitors into applicants — all based on our experience in ChallengeRocket. Let’s start.
Research your perfect candidate
Applying for a job is a bit like a purchase decision. Pressing the “APPLY NOW” means that the candidate hopes for getting a job that fulfills his or her plans, goals and dreams.
To help that happen, before you create a job ad, learn everything possible about your ideal candidate. What are his or her professional goals and plans? What would make him or her happy in the company? Use the answers to build a proper job description. Make sure the potential candidate would be a great fit for your company.
Optimize the job title with the keywords candidate uses
It is very creative to come up with unique and catchy job titles such as Java Ninja or Senior Analytics Expert but they won’t get you desirable exposure. Take the SEO under consideration and use the phrases people use in the Google search. Not only your job offer will be more visible but also everyone who sees the job offer will transparently know if the job offer matches their preferences, skills and experience.
See the example job titles in the FIND JOBS section at ChallengeRocket.com. We build them matching the name of the technology and seniority level (such as Senior Java Developer or Mid QA Specialist). Choosing the concrete technology makes the system insert the job description template that you can use — to make the process easier.
Introduce your company properly
Your job doesn’t end with writing the job description. People want to work in the company that is a fit for them, has a great atmosphere and a supportive team. Do not copy the “About us” section from your website. Put some effort and write down what is great about working at your company, what possible candidates can expect, how projects look like, what team you are hiring for. To increase the chance to grab great candidates` attention, craft a company profile. Fill it with attractive descriptions, attach photos and videos presenting people in your company, add some articles. It can not only get you some amazing applicants but also enhance your employer branding.
We prepare such profiles for our clients in ChallengeRocket (e.g. for Ericsson, Samsung, EY GDS Poland and others).
Briefly describe the job’s benefits
It is a must have in a job ad to implement not only requirements and job description but also additional benefits for the potential employee. Try to answer the following questions in the job ad: how can the employee grow within the company, what benefits he can expect, what company offers, what is the possible career path, what the employee can accomplish at the role. Make the information as concrete and comprehensive as possible.
For example in ChallengeRocket, we created an easy-to-use job offer configurator that allows to personalize job description, benefits description and the info what company offers.
See for yourself — start a free trial and build a job ad in 5 minutes.
Keep the job’s requirements clear and realistic
Make your list of requirements as concrete and clear as possible. You don’t want to scare away great candidates with blocks of text and unclear expectations. You also don’t want to attract unqualified people with wide expectations. Define what “experienced” means to you, list skills that are “must-have`s” and “nice-to-have`s”, determine which technologies the candidate needs to know. Make advantage of the ready-to-use configurators (such as the one we created in ChallengeRocket) to assort information into sections. It makes the job ad more transparent and clear. The candidate can navigate easier and absorb the information that matters to him.
See 3 easy steps to recruit online with the ChallengeRocket platform.
Attach pre-assessment test to your job ad
A lot of job offers look alike. There is nothing special about them but as mentioned earlier, you are fighting for the attention of the candidates. To distinguish your job ad among many others in the IT industry, extend it with a short, gamification-based skills test. It allows you not only to quickly assess candidates` competence but also to check who is motivated and committed to apply for the job. Taking 15 minutes to fill up the test definitely shows the proactive attitude. To deliver this kind of experience for both employers and candidates, we created SkillChallenge. It’s a short pre-assessment test that checks technical skills and provides automatic feedback for the candidate — instantly after he applied. Less work for you!
Our clients discovered the power of SkillChallenge and used that in their recruitment processes. You can see here how we craft engaging tests for them. Come aboard and test the water with our 14-day free trial.
Gather feedback about the job ad from candidates
Remember who you write job offers for. Try to gather as much candidates` feedback as possible. Ask them about what they like about the job ad, what caught their eyes, what is missing in the job description. Improve your job ads on a regular basis. Adjust to often-changing expectations and habits of the candidates to deliver them the best candidate experience ever. Listen to them and win them over.
Let the candidates know you
Last but not least — the recruitment is all about people. Make it easier for the candidate to get to know you better. Attach your photo and contact data to the job offer. Share the job ad on your LinkedIn profile (that feature is coming soon at ChallengeRocket). Make yourself visible so that the candidate can contact you directly and make a meaningful connection. Remember that we`re in human2human business :)
