Nearly a third of employees have quit a job within the first six months, according to data from BambooHR. Twenty-six percent left because they were given different work to do than what they’d expected.
Job candidates should, in theory, have a clear picture of what a position involves by the end of the interview process.
But misunderstandings can occur. Potential hires may be meeting with several different people from a department, for example, and some may not know exactly what the role entails. Some might not want to emphasize key responsibilities for fear a top hire won’t take the job.
Job seekers, in some instances, may feel uncomfortable asking about certain aspects of a position because they think it will make them look unenthusiastic.
Creating a Powerful Job Posting
To avoid any confusion, hiring professionals need to make sure their very first contact with candidates — the job posting the company uses to promote the position — is clear.
Ensure you’re conveying an accurate overview of what both the company and candidate will expect by incorporating the following elements into your listing:
Be descriptive
Focus on facts that will resonate with job candidates. Mentioning who the person will report to if hired won’t convey what the candidate will be doing on a daily basis as clearly as a brief list of the services he’ll be providing. Saying a financial hire will review reports for inaccuracies and maintain backup files, for example, provides a more detailed view of the role than saying the position is situated under the more global Finance Director.
Paint a vivid picture
Including a company culture summary location, if your office is in a desirable area, and other explanatory information can help give job candidates a sense of what working for your organization would be like.
Mention key selling points
Adding popular benefits and amenities you offer can help convince job candidates working for you is a compelling prospect.
Medical and dental benefits are the most effective when trying to attract new candidates, according to 78 percent of recruiters; 65 percent say offering a 401(k) pension helps, and 44 percent have found flexible hours and a casual dress code appeal to job seekers, according to Jobvite’s most recent annual recruiting study.
Emphasize your employer brand
A powerful company brand may intrigue some job seekers; employer brand, however, is twice as likely to drive candidates’ job considerations, according to LinkedIn research.
Executives ranked having a strong employer brand as the second most important recruiting advantage for global organizations in a 2015 Futurestep survey. Find out more about how to promote your employer brand in our employer branding white paper.
Be honest
If you’re concerned candidates won’t be interested in a position if you list certain aspects in the job posting, make sure you discuss them in detail during initial phone or in-person interviews. Yes, you want to stress factors that will potentially entice job seekers — however, omitting particularly challenging job responsibilities can cause engagement, retention and other issues down the road.
A quarter of all job seekers use social media as their primary search tool, according to Staff.com — so it should be one of the outlets you use to promote open positions.
To learn more about effective social media strategies, view our blog posts on tips on using social media for recruiting; which sites recruiters use most often — and why, and other ways you can use technology to improve your recruiting practices.
The recruiting process, of course, doesn’t begin and end with social media. If you’re looking for additional information on locating new hires, you may also find our posts on attracting better job candidates, using passive recruiting to reach candidates and taking a marketing-based approach to recruiting helpful.