With organizations closing and/or laying of staff over the past few years, there are many more candidates looking for jobs than before. This means that there are more applicants for every job, including an increasing percentage of those who are "trying their luck" in desperation. There is a constant refrain from the organization side about how there is a dearth of quality manpower, and the huge amount of time spent in shortlisting candidates who are not suitable. Most times, the issue with these problems of quality manpower and unsuitable candidates has to do with the details and clarity of recruitment advertisement.
We know that the purpose of a recruitment advertisement is to convey the critical information of a job vacancy, so that relevant candidates may apply.However, I've noticed that many hiring teams of organizations skip a few key items or ignore them altogether. This doesn't show a professional corporate image to the world. This creates more problems for the organization than the applicant.
For the applicant - Its a waste of time to realize that the job they applied for, has a couple of unmentioned items that were non negotiable to them. It could be location of the job, compensation, responsibilities or whatever their situation is at the time.
For the organization -
- You end up annoying quality and average candidates with an incomplete recruitment advertisement when they find out important criteria missing, simply because they're unsure if they should apply or not.
- You wasted your time conversing with candidates who wrongly applied, who likely wouldn't have applied if you were explicit in your recruitment advertisement.
- You hurt your organization's employment brand when you put out unprofessional recruitment advertisements. This makes your future hiring more difficult, because you will become known as "they don't know clearly what they want in a candidate".
- When you spend so much time scheduling and interviewing irrelevant job applications to finally select someone, there are chances that you may rush through the interview process and make a wrong hire while trying to meet a hiring deadline.
- Because of the recency effect, a mediocre candidate may look better than he/she actually is and would again lead to a wrong hire.
- The highest votes went to Job Responsibilities, which tells us that candidates are totally keen to know what is the kind of work they will be required to do / be responsible for. As recruiters, clarity is of utmost importance here.
- Conversely, the lowest votes went to Years of Experience. I find this interesting since I've experienced quite a few occasions where candidates are applying for roles with more responsibilities, without having requisite experience. I've noticed some job ads which mention responsibilities that are not commensurate with years or experience or even don't mention the years of experience. The thought behind this action from a hiring perspective is that the organization won't have to pay for the experience of a senior person and still get the job done with some manageable (they hope) errors.
- Designation and location were equally important - almost. The designation in particular, can be very appealing and attractive to some candidates.
So, to improve the quality of applicants, here are some of the 'Must - have' ingredients of a recruitment advertisement in no particular order of importance:
- Location - a candidate does need to decide if he/she is willing to travel to your office daily. With remote work becoming more prevalent, this may not be required. A work from home mention is necessary. However the candidate will need to know where his head / regional / local office is situated.
- Industry - Every industry has it's nuances in the way they execute their tasks. If you are open to hiring from any industry, then please ensure that you check this in the interview thoroughly and provide the selected candidate sufficient time to perform after being hired. This also helps you develop a diverse workforce.
- Designation - Many candidates equate their professional and personal self-image to a designation. So clarity in this will ensure that relevant candidates apply.
- Nature of qualifications required - I've seen really articulate ads mention that they want graduates from specific B-schools only or a full-time degree. It is annoying to be told after you applied, that, while a person holding any degree may apply, it should be full-time course only.
- Role and responsibilities - Yes everything cannot be articulated in the advertisement, cos of the thinking - "what if it has to be changed before the candidate is selected and joins". That is no reason to be vague about these things. The main critical responsibilities that a company will evaluate the candidate on in their performance assessment and bonus payout should be mentioned clearly. If there is a ranking preference of importance in the number of responsibilities, please mention that too. If the role requires an individual contributor, please specify that so that those candidates with visions of managing teams don't apply. I have noticed that there are organizations who really spend time to articulate these things, and I am sure they get more relevant applicants.
- Years of experience - Too many times, the years of experience mentioned is less than what the responsibilities entail. Similarly, if there is a need of more experience in a specific responsibility, please mention that as well. When job description expectations are unreasonably high, you set up the selected candidate for failure and waste company resources in hiring and training such a candidate. This ends up damaging the employment brand to such a level that only the very desperate apply and end up either giving poor or average performance or just leaving after a few months.
- Compensation - Please do provide a range. This ensures that candidates above the compensation or looking for higher salary packages think twice before applying and wasting yours and everyone else's time.
Bottom line - If you can be specific in your recruitment advertisement, it improves the quality of your candidate applications and ultimately the quality of hired candidates. It positively reinforces your brand image so that your future hiring is that much easier. Of course, employer brand is also dependent on how employees are treated in the organization after they are hired, but that's for another article.
Want to know more? Call me on +919820155778 or write to me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com
