Throughout my career I’ve been asked countless times to help family and friends in their job search. Whether its reviewing CVs, helping with interview preparation, hiring either here at Fetch or by placing them with our clients. I’m always happy to help and share the experience I’ve been able to obtain over the past 10 years.
Whilst most of my advice has been directed towards those searching for work, myself and the team will be writing a series of blogs over the coming months hoping to assist our clients with sourcing candidates, retention and giving you all an insight into our life dealing with thousands of construction candidates on a daily basis.
Chapter 1 – Job Advertising
Firstly, an insight into Australia’s largest job advertising platform:
· Only 75% of Construction and Trades & Labour applicants are based in Victoria. NSW and overseas applicants account for 25%.
· Adverts/Job postings are at a record high in a 23-year history.
· Job applications are at a 9-year low (2012), with a 14% decline year on year.
· Job security has been listed as the #1 factor for candidates post pandemic, replacing 'salary' from late 2019.
Given the above stats, when posting job adverts, we have more competition and less applications. Therefore, your adverts need to be well structured, highlight features and benefits and give candidates a reason to apply – just having an available position isn’t enough! See below a few tips & tricks which may assist your next advert.
Job Title
- Be basic, what would a candidate type into the search bar?
Pay Rates/Salary
- Although job security sits at #1, 75% of surveyed candidates say they are less likely to apply for a job with a hidden salary. So, review the market and ask yourself: are your rates in line with the competition?
Summary Page
- One of the biggest challenges within advertising is the saturated nature of the job boards. You could have the best position in the world but how will people know if no one opens the advert.
- Engagement happens within the first 10 seconds. So, ensure you have a hook and promote what's in it for them.
- Include relevant role information (what the candidate will actually do), the location, and benefits (salary, company, career development/progression).
Main Body
- Structure your advert with bullet points, headers and information which is clear and easy to digest.
- Highlight any key selling points of your company and the position available – why should people work for you?
- Be clear on duties and requirements. People want to know what they’ll be doing, when and where. Being deceptive or leaving our critical information isn’t going to benefit you or the potential candidate
- Up to 80% of job views are now on mobile devices, have you reviewed what your advert looks like on a smartphone?
Signing off
- Include a call to action like; “Call me on….”, “Email your CV to ..." or even “Apply Now." Without a direct action candidates may be unsure, put you to the bottom of the pile or put in the too hard basket.
- Consider the non tech-savvy individuals without CVs, how do they proceed?
It's important to remember that a good job ad is the start of finding the best employee for your role - however it's not where your attraction strategies should end.
Reputation
As they say: reputation is everything.
- According to a study by LinkedIn (2018), 75% of job seekers research an organisation’s reputation before applying for a job. How are your businesses Google and Glassdoor reviews looking?
- Does your business care about their social, ethical and environmental impact? Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a huge consideration people have when moving to a new company.
Social Media
Other methods of attracting candidates outside of job boards come from being more social - whether that be face-to-face networking or having a presence on social media. Aside from having your own marketing plan in place:
- You should encourage your current employees to be advocates for your brand. (Of course in order for them to demonstrate that they're happy working for you ... they need to actually be happy.) When a happy employee promotes their workplace on their own social media, or engages with the company page online it shows to the broader community that your workplace is in fact a community in itself.
In conclusion, I hope this blog has assisted you in making your job advertisement stand out in an online world where they're everywhere. In the coming months my team will be posting more blogs that expand on these points. Should you require any additional information prior to then, please do not hesitate to reach out to myself or my team.
For examples of this job ad structure visit the "Job Search" tab at the top of this page. This blog was written by Daniel Musto, the Director of Fetch Personnel at Fetch Recruitment. You can connect with him on LinkedIn here.
