How To Write A Great Job Ad

Writing a Job Ad vs a Job Description

A job ad is different from a job description. A job description is usually very lengthy, and very formal. In a job ad, you want to have a more casual tone. While including the requirements and an outline of the general duties, you want to keep the ad succinct, friendly and approachable.

How to write an eye-catching ad headline for your job posting.

Remember, this is the very first thing that a job seeker sees when deciding whether to click on your ad. If you look on Craigslist and Indeed.com, you’ll see lots of very vanilla and general ad headlines. It’s very easy to make yours stand out. Include these three things in your job headline:

1.) Use A Common and Appropriate Job Title

Perhaps at your company you call the receptionist a “Director of First Impressions”, while it’s a clever and lovely title for her business card, it may not attract the correct job seekers on the job boards. If they’re searching by keyword, which they do exclusively on Indeed.com, they’ll never see your ad. As a result, you want to make sure the most commonly used job title for that type of position is what goes in your ad headline.

2.) Include something that makes the job posting unique

The second thing to always include in your ad headline is something that makes your company unique and interesting- something that makes your business stand out. Perhaps it’s something that you’re offering, like a 4 day work week, casual Fridays, room to grow or a super fun culture. You want to put that right in the ad headline to make your job stand out.

3.) Don’t forget to Include the Pay

The third thing you always want to include in your job headline is the pay, or a pay range. It could be a really broad range, such as $10-$20 per hour or $30-$50,000 per year, but you want to state a range. This will dramatically increase your applicant flow. Again, if you look on other job boards, you will see that very few employers include this in their ad headline.

Writing the body: a job description with a twist.

1) The first paragraph

This first paragraph should be a general summary about the company and about what you’re looking to fill. A best practice our dedicated hiring partners like to follow is to expand on that common and appropriate title you wrote in the headline. Then, tell your company’s story! This will let the job-seeker know what your company’s goals and culture are like.

2) The second paragraph

This second paragraph is a great place to go into more detail about what makes your company and this opportunity attractive. What makes your company unique? Are you actively prioritizing more diversity and inclusion in your workforce? Do you have a good work-life balance, including the ability to work remotely? All of these things have been noted as hiring trends for 2021, and show no signs of slowing down. So, embrace them!

3) Then we recommend having a bulleted list of the general duties of the position, followed by a bulleted list of the required skills and experience.

Remember to be specific- is this a required skill or a “like to have” or “bonus if you have” skill. Towards the end you can go into more detail about the compensation package.This will let For example, most people know what a receptionist does, but It is comforting to them to know they already have the skills for this job they found.

Get the job-seeker to your application

The prospective applicant read through your whole ad, but they don’t have any clear way of getting to your site to apply to the job! While it seems obvious, you’d be surprised how often this step is overlooked. We recommend having an online application and include a hyperlink right in the ad. This way, your prospective applicant can follow a very clear web-journey without getting frustrated by unnecessary steps.

Our Favorite Job Posting Examples (or Template)

Below we’ve included a few favorite examples of job postings our hiring partners wrote for our clients. Feel free to track each element that we outlined above and how they differ based on industry, experience level, and location.

Want to hear more about how our dedicated hiring partners will write Job Ads for your open position? Call now to schedule a consultation.