In this current market, efficient recruitment is vital and despite many organisations either having a poor experience of a job board or being told by recruitment agencies that job boards don’t work, they absolutely do!

However, it’s vital that your advert is engaging and grabs a candidate’s attention up front by highlighting why the opportunity is exciting and why your organisation is so great to work for.

Many of the job adverts we’ve seen posted by both recruitment agencies and directly by organisations, suffer from some of the standard mistakes we’ve previously highlighted, and that’s often why an organisation might think a job board doesn’t work. But the reality is that it’s usually more likely to be down to the fact that it’s just a basic job description being posted, or has a fancy job title that candidates aren’t searching for.

We know job boards work and provide superb value for our clients - at a fraction of the cost of recruitment agency fees. 

So how do you make sure a job board delivers?

In our experience, some of the key aspects to delivering great quality candidates from a job board include the following:

• Clearly including the benefits of the role upfront is a must. The candidate needs to see why they should apply for your role. High quality, experienced candidates will have no shortage of offers – so make clear why they should choose your organisation and your opportunity.

• Specifying the expected salary or having an estimated range. Don’t worry about potentially overpaying based on your displayed salary bracket as this can always be negotiated based on a candidate’s experience at the offer stage. You should also highlight the main additional benefits such as private medical insurance, company car, and in particular any work/life balance or mental health benefits.
  

• The importance of job title shouldn’t be underestimated – after all, this is what the candidate is likely to be searching on. But many organisations think that by having a fun and quirky advert which incorporates a fancy job title, it will make them stand out. Whilst Corporate Engagement Wizard sounds cool, the role of a business to business salesman will be what a candidate will search for, and so won’t find your advert in their search results.

• Avoiding jargon – even industry recognised ones – is imperative as it may put off a suitable candidate if they’re not sure about the terminology. Similarly, ensure your advert is short and snappy bullet points rather than long boring paragraphs of text.
  
  
• Branding is also critical. Candidates want to know who they are applying to and will often research a company in advance to make sure it’s an organisation they can relate to and aspire to work for.

Imagine having a job advert that has a clear job title and organisation, highlights the key benefits of the opportunity, and is easy to read and understand. Any candidate interested in the job will end up searching your organisation's name in a new tab as they read the application. Now imagine that they only find glowing reviews, and anecdotes that show your organisation is a tremendous place to work. The chances are really high they’ll apply instantly.  

Does using a candidate attraction business add any value? 

The use of a candidate attraction business such as ourselves is a great way to get value from job boards. Whilst that may sound like an obvious sales pitch, the reality is we’ve been a game-changer for many clients looking to hire top talent.

With the ability to post to multiple job boards without the need for relationships with each individual board, as well as the benefit of the substantial discounted costs compared with going direct due to our scale and bargaining power, your organisation can reach a significantly wider audience. This in turn, attracts more quality, quantity and diversity of candidates – for much greater value.

The greater negotiation power of a candidate attraction business will also help ensure your advert gets premium and sponsored listings at a vastly reduced rate than going direct. Again, this will make your job advert much more visible to candidates searching on the right keywords for your opportunity.

A really good candidate attraction business will have the knowledge, skills and expertise to review your job advert and make the necessary changes to help ensure your job advert will appear high up the search rankings for the relevant keywords. Sometimes the changes might be a whole re-write of the advert and other times, just minor tweaks, but in both cases, they’ll usually make a big difference to the search results.

A candidate attraction business can also be especially beneficial for smaller businesses who may not have a dedicated HR function with the skills to deliver high performing adverts or the resources to deal with more than one job board – significantly impacting their ability to attract a wider and more diverse range of candidates.

Finally, the additional services such as CV filtering and initial candidate screening that a candidate attraction business provides, can help ensure even further time savings across the entire recruitment process.

Summary 

In short, job boards provide brilliant value for organisations who ensure their advert doesn’t suffer from some of the many mistakes we see.

In addition, the use of a great candidate attraction business will help ensure much wider access to candidates via multiple job boards at significantly lower costs, and much higher visibility of your advert. Their experience and expertise will save significant time and effort, whilst delivering better quality, quantity and more diverse candidates.

About Us

At Hiring Wizard, we have over a decade of success delivering optimised, fully branded recruitment campaigns using the very best job boards, achieving significant recruitment cost savings for a variety of businesses across the UK. 

Put simply, we are brilliant at targeting and attracting the right candidate(s) for all kinds of vacancies, delivering excellent hires for a fraction of what you might pay to a traditional recruitment agency. We utilise a state-of-the-art Applicant Tracking System and have even helped our clients with their Employer Branding and dedicated careers microsites. 

So if you’re struggling to attract the right talent from your job adverts or a recruitment agency, why not give Hiring Wizard a call on 0161 696 8899 or drop us an email at info@hiringwizard.co.uk? Our dedication to ensuring our clients’ adverts are seen by the best talent means we can deliver much more diverse, quality, and quantity, of candidates.