If there’s one thing that companies looking to hire need to know right now, it’s how well you market your job opportunity that impacts the quality of applicants you receive. 

It’s all about the opportunity and how you sell it.

It sounds like common sense, and you may be thinking: “We already do that. We post our job description on our website and job boards. What more could we possibly need to do?”

We work with companies every day that have using this same method to market each job opportunity, and continuously fail to attract the candidates they really want – the top 10%, the rockstars, the cream of the crop. We know exactly why.

1. Top candidates are happily employed, which means they really need to be “wowed” in order to even slightly consider making a move.
2. Competition is heating up so candidates are seeing more opportunities and can be much more choosey about which to pursue.
3. Candidates are sick of seeing long lists of required qualifications, they care about what’s in it for them and what they’ll actually be working to accomplish.

So, in order to attract top candidates, companies need to take the following actions:

• Ditch the generic, templated job description. They’re far too technical and focused on the list of qualifications required for the job as opposed to the bigger picture.
• Focus on describing the opportunity, meaning the mission or challenge that the candidate will be tasked with in the role.
• Use “you” instead of “the successful candidate” or other generic, third-person terms. Write as if the candidate reading the job description is already a star performer in the role.
• Create excitement around the mission or challenge. Your goal is to compel top candidates to say “Yes, this is the job for me!”
• Share the story and vision of what your company and the opportunity can do for the candidate – this is absolutely key to attracting quality applicants.
• Use all channels beyond job boards to get the word out about the job you’re looking to fill. Top candidates typically aren’t looking at job boards so you need to catch their eye elsewhere – maybe with a tweet or LinkedIn update.
• Market beyond the job description. Candidates do their research, which means you need to make sure that what they see online when they Google your company or visit your website is consistent with what you describe in your job description.
• Give candidates insight into the personality and culture of the company through photos of real employees on your website, regular updates on your social media channels and a complete Glassdoor profile.
• Emphasize your company’s successes publicly, things like awards, statistics about your growth, positive press coverage and recognition.
• Keep marketing the opportunity throughout the hiring process, using your new and exciting job description as your guide.
• Call in the experts. It helps to bring in a third-party to help identify the real opportunity and story that lies within your long list of job qualifications. Recruiters are experts at marketing opportunities to the right candidates and can help save you a lot of time and stress.

Do you have any tips for effectively marketing a job opportunity to attract top talent? Share them in the comments or tweet us @MBAI_team.