Not so many years ago employees advertised their jobs in print media, such as newspapers or magazines, however, no matter if it was a print ad in those days or if it is online today, the issue is that recruitment advertising has been and continues to be a crucial part of the marketing mix when looking for potential candidates for vacancies in your organization.

Today, employers can purchase many types of online recruitment media not only to reach active candidates but also to engage and attract passive candidates and nurture talent delivery volume.

Creating a successful recruitment ad is a skill, like managing the social media recruitment strategy (See our blog post: social media strategic source for hiring new talent or using the right SEO strategy. Your ad competes with 6,000 to 10,000 messages that people see online around the world every day. It is no wonder that companies choose to outsource their recruitment marketing efforts altogether.

To recruit candidates using paid advertising, you must invest money in hiring online spaces. First, your business should determine the budget, which should be enough to reach its target audience and select the right platforms and traffic sources.

If you have your budget set, you can develop the ad. But, to capture your potential candidate’s attention, you must tailor the ad for each role. Personalization is a valuable tactic; therefore, you must first establish the profile of your candidate persona. 

Consider the candidate carefully. What does the candidate want to know? Creating a persona will help you gather information and make better decisions when designing your recruitment ad.

Understanding what the ideal candidate wants allows you to offer specific benefits in advance.

SIX STEPS TO DEVELOPING A RECRUITMENT AD

What do you need to do when you are sure that you know your conversion goals, set your budget and are clear about the type of people you want to attract to your company?

• Choose the right platform

You must identify the channels that you will use to adapt the ad to the chosen platform. Active candidates go looking for a job on sites like LinkedIn or Indeed, while passive candidates may spend more time on search engines or social media. Once you have the platform, you can find out what kind of copy you will need to create and optimize.

• Keep the message short

The challenge of any type of advertising is that it must be short and attractive, so the company presentation is unnecessary, the name will appear in the message’s header, so the candidate can go to the website if he wants to know more about the organization.

The first sentence has a huge effect to capture attention, look for a phrase that hooks the candidate and make sure to get to the point quickly. The average reader spends 10 seconds scanning the messages, it is essential that you address the important things at the beginning.

Remember that defining a substantial value proposition for the candidate is an advantage when starting your recruitment strategy and you need to add this value proposition to the content of the copy you develop. (See our Blog: Improve the employee’s value proposition)

Once you have your copy ready make sure to inform the candidates of the next step to follow and establish your “call action”. For example, where to send the resume or how to contact the company in case of any doubt.

• SEO: Optimize the copy for search engines

 To find the ad by potential candidates, you must optimize the copy for search engines. That means that once you have your copy ready, you need to include keywords that are normally associated with the vacant position.

 When reviewing your content, once again, you must add these keywords to your ad, in this way you are improving the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which will facilitate the search for your ad on the chosen platforms.

• Customize the design

Take the time to create custom templates aligned with the company’s image and include appropriate images that help differentiate your ad from your competitors, in this way you send a visual communication not only attractive but coherent to your potential candidates.

 Make sure the images you include in the ad have good resolution and are representative of the specific role your company is advertising.

• Link the ad to a landing page

Each ad can have a link to a landing page hosted on the organization’s website. The objective of this page is to provide details about specific aspects of the job offer and the possible candidate that the organization is looking for. 

• Evaluate your ad, monitor and measure

Experiment, test, monitor ad performance and identify key conversion data to make changes when needed. Numbers are your sword and shield because everything is measurable online. 

Each metric will help you measure, compare, and evaluate your campaigns so that you can meet your advertisement ROI goals. Search engines provide you with an extensive list of digital metrics that help you keep a close eye on your advertisement investment.

The challenge for recruiting professionals and organizations is to quickly hire the best employees in an intense and competitive market. That means that your candidate needs see your ad at the right time, on the right platform, therefore, organizations should invest their recruitment ad budget wisely to get high-quality candidates.