In this op-ed, Owen Joyce, COO of Advertising Industry Careers, discusses the dead-end road job ads currently find themselves on. More effort on the part of the employer to engage with candidates is needed, he suggests.
For a long time, job ads have been a key part of the talent attraction process, but did you ever stop to wonder how well they work? Now, you might say ‘They work, because when I place an ad, I get X number of applicants and, in many cases, some of the candidates fit some or all of the criteria!’. But, did it really work?
Did you hire the best candidate, an okay candidate, or a close enough to settle-candidate? Hint: If your churn rates are as high as they are for many in the industry, this could be an indication that something isn’t quite right. Expectations are not being matched.
The love of your life
Let’s for fun compare finding the best person for a role to finding the love of your life. (Sing it, Freddie!) Now, you might say the two things are very different, however, if you think about it, the people who make the biggest difference in any business are those who; a) are a great (cultural) match, b) really want to be there, and 3) stick around for the long haul and aren’t easily persuaded to go elsewhere!
If you were trying to meet someone, here are some things you probably wouldn’t do:
- Create a profile that describes what you want but says very generic stuff about what you offer in return.
- Only keep your profile live for 30 days at a time and not look outside of that window.
- Measure your success on how quickly or how little money you spent finding your partner.
- Settle just to put a ‘bum on a seat’ and finish the search because it’s annoying.
Where are all the good candidates at?
LinkedIn data suggests that candidates can spend 8+ months vetting their next employer. That’s a long time. If the only thing speaking for your business is a short-lived job ad, it’s making you invisible for much of that time.
SEEK recently published some info about Job ads in its Laws of Attraction portal. The article talks about speaking to a candidate’s motivations. It sounds obvious but it doesn’t always happen.
To be frank about it, sometimes job ads look like they’ve been half-heartedly cobbled together in a hurry. We see ads with typos, no teaser summary to excite the candidate, and in some cases multiple job titles used throughout the same job ad. Reading between the lines, it can say a lot about how much the company cares about candidates. (Side note: We’re always happy to provide feedback on job ads if requested).
Money talks
There seems to be very little appetite in our industry for publishing salaries. We’re not here to tell anyone how to suck eggs but suffice to say, if there was one thing we could change it would be that every job ad had a salary or a range attached to it. Thinking back to last year’s MFA Ex event, salary transparency was something that the majority of delegates suggested needed fixing. If you think about it, it’s not a great way to start a relationship and now with the Fair Work Pay Secrecy changes allowing employees to discuss their salary without fear of penalty, perhaps it’s something we will get to in the future.
Employer brand and EVP
Advertising Industry Careers just turned 5 months old but we can already see the cumulative effects of going beyond the job ad. Every employer, blog, and job post adds to the candidate experience. Traffic is growing in volume and passive, high-quality candidates are taking notice both on the platform and on LinkedIn. Candidates often register but don’t apply for days or weeks afterwards. There are high levels of engagement with job alerts and return visitors to the platform grow every week.
While job ads are not entirely obsolete, they are no longer sufficient on their own to attract the best talent. We have to play the long game, individually as organisations, and as an industry working together. Populating your employing profile on AIC to tell more of your story, posting expressions of interest when you’re not actively hiring, and sending us company news to post on our blog – these are all activities that can keep you in front of candidates.
The next talent shortage
Although times are tight now, we all know that there’ll be another talent shortage in the future. Some day soon, things will turn around fast and you, your competitors, and your clients will all be looking for the same skills at the same time!
By then, if we’ve collectively put the effort into attracting skilled individuals, the industry won’t have to suffer being understaffed, poaching from each other, wage inflation, and all the other issues that come with a talent shortage.
