So, you posted a job ad, and the results were… disappointing. It was roughly the same ad you used three years ago, and it got you LOTS of applicants. While not all the applicants were a great fit, you got enough applications that you could sort through them to find five people for a first interview, which lead to three second interviews, which lead to you making one job offer — which they accepted with excitement.
You thought this time was going to be just like every other time — many anxious people would run to your opportunity! …But this time, they didn’t. This time, you received three applicants that were… disappointing. Because it always worked in the past, you don’t know what to do next. You have fired every bullet in your clip, fired every arrow in your quiver, and you are fresh out.
If you find yourself here, it’s time to do some auditing of your hiring efforts. It’s time to see your job offering through the eyes of the jobseeker. Let’s do a simple exercise to have the same experience that the people we hoped would respond to our ad are having… let’s go looking for your own job ad.
Based on my work with thousands of job seekers, I can tell you when someone goes on Indeed or LinkedIn looking for a new job, they only have two data points to use in their search: The title of their desired job, and the geographical radius they are willing to commute to. So, let’s do a search just like they did to see IF and WHERE your ad shows up in the results.
If you have a customer service position advertised, go to Indeed and put those two variables into the search engine. For example, put “customer service” into the search bar and set 15 miles from your zip code into the search radius and hit enter. Almost magically, you will be looking at the exact same screen of job ads that your desired candidates are looking at. Study the screen… does your job ad show up at all? What types of jobs and companies DO show up with your search? Who are you competing with? What are they offering? Would you choose your ad to respond to if you were comparing it to all of the others?
Take a deep breath here… you may not like the results. But if YOU can’t find your job ad, can you still blame job seekers for not applying? How can you get to a result you can be proud of? More to come…
If you are looking for insight or specific action steps to grow a process within your organization to Win the War for Talent, please reach out. It’s my passion to help companies solve their talent issues, whether that is finding the right talent or retaining and developing that talent. With the right processes in place, your organization can grow and thrive even more!
