When you think of Recruitment Marketing, a variety of tactics might come to mind: Posting engaging content on social media, sending company information and job alerts via email, using automation tools like chatbots and text recruiting to better engage with candidates, and a whole lot more. However, there’s one important element that many practitioners may not think is a huge piece of the Recruitment Marketing puzzle: Job descriptions. But they are!
The majority of your time as a practitioner is likely spent on marketing your organization, your culture, your employees, your teams, your values and much more. It’s all about drawing that top talent in to your careers site to read the job descriptions you’ve created. But the marketing needs to also apply to these descriptions! In fact, with the right format, copy and additional resources, you can turn your job descriptions into one of your best pieces of Recruitment Marketing content.
While Recruitment Marketing has grown significantly over the past few years, many job descriptions have not evolved with it. Companies still rely on bulleted lists, uninspiring copy and bland design elements for their job descriptions. But if their descriptions don’t match up with the rest of their Recruitment Marketing initiatives, they’ll do little to entice candidates to apply.
It’s time for a change! Making your job descriptions an important part of your Recruitment Marketing plan can help better align your employer brand message and turn candidates into applicants. To learn how to develop more enticing job descriptions, download our ideabook 6 Enhanced Job Descriptions to Inspire You.
And make sure you’re looking at your job descriptions with a marketing mindset. Here’s how you can kick your job descriptions up a notch.
Think of the person, not the job
The goal of a job description is to make it all about the candidate, not your company. When developing a description, start with what you’re looking for in a potential hire. Include soft skills such as personal attributes along with the requirements and desired experience, and clearly outline how this person will contribute to their individual team and the company as a whole.
It’s also a good idea for job descriptions to speak to a candidate directly. Using a conversational tone can help talent connect better with the description and with your organization. Of course, this depends on the position and the audience, so check with hiring managers to ensure you’re taking the right approach.
Feature a day in the life
While a job description provides a great deal of detail on what the position entails, there’s no one who knows it better than the employees already doing the job! Including a “day in the life” spotlight can give talent a better understanding of the role and what they would be working on.
These spotlights can be in video format or even just a written outline that details what someone in that position does on a typical workday. You can feature individual employees (which will help you build up your team content toolkit!), or you can provide a general overview of a day in the life. It can be included in the job description itself, or you can simply provide a link in the description for candidates to click on.
This example from Texas Instruments highlights one of their engineering employees and what a workday looks like for him as part of the Technology Manufacturing Group.
“Day in the life” employee spotlights can be in video format or just a written outline that details what someone in a position does on a typical workday.
Showcase similar jobs
There are times when a specific job description isn’t exactly what a candidate is looking for. Instead of them navigating away from your careers site, you can include similar jobs on the description page that might appeal to them. This gives you additional chances to capture their attention with the right job description!
Even if a candidate doesn’t find a similar job that fits the bill, providing this element on your description page can encourage them to sign up for job alerts and your talent network so they can stay updated on new opportunities. The example below from Southwest shows how the company includes a short list of similar positions on each description page, and also includes a prompt for candidates to receive additional alerts to roles they might be interested in.
Southwest Airlines show similar jobs in each job description to interest candidates in applying.
Put descriptions to the test
Testing the effectiveness of different campaigns, content and initiatives is something that modern marketers know well. The same can — and should — be done in Recruitment Marketing! Testing two versions of the same job description with varying differences — known as A/B testing — can help you see which content performs better, and can help inform your future content campaigns and initiatives.
Here are some of the elements you can test to analyze the best performing job descriptions. Keep in mind that best practice is to test one variable at a time:
- Formats: Structure job descriptions in different ways to see which one garners more views and/or applications. For example, you can put expected responsibilities at the very top of one version, and in another put the qualifications you’re looking for at the top. Swapping the order of information lets you know what candidates are most interested in right off the bat.
- Job titles: A job title is like the headline for a description, so it needs to capture attention while also being accurate for the position. You can test a few titles out to see which one performs better. To come up with additional job titles, talk with the hiring managers to see which keywords can be used
- Wording: Just like with blogs and other content, your job descriptions should contain keywords that help them appear in search. You can test out different keywords to see which ones resonate the most with your audience. You can even test out different tones in your job descriptions! For instance, a friendlier, more conversational tone could capture the interest of the right candidates.
- On-page resources: It’s also a good idea to test the effectiveness of the extra resources you provide on the description page, such as the similar jobs list, day in the life videos and other content pieces that could help you draw in top talent.
All of the Recruitment Marketing content you’ve created won’t help much unless your job descriptions also show candidates why they would want to work for your organization in a compelling way. When coupled with enhanced job descriptions, these marketing elements can help you create engaging and effective job descriptions that candidates will be excited to apply for!