Gone are the days of traditional newspapers ads and in-person interviews. Small Businesses now need to implement a digital recruitment process to compete with larger companies and attract top talent.
Ever increasing digitisation gave us the creation of various online recruitment platforms, meaning that Small Business Owners now have a wealth of tools and strategies at their fingertips to attract the perfect candidates.
However it can still be extremely difficult to compete on these platforms as a Small Business, but don’t worry, we’ve got you, in this blog we’ll be exploring the ways that you can stand out from the crowd and become a master of advertising your businesses job positions online.
1. Well Written and Visually Appealing Job Postings
First and foremost, your job advertisements need to be interesting, if you make a job look and sound boring, you will see a significantly decreased number of interested applicants. Creating an engaging and well-crafted job posting is the key to attracting a range of qualified and talented people, but how do you accomplish this?
While you obviously need to include a detailed and concise description of the position, responsibilities, hours, and any required qualifications, don’t just stop there. Highlight the unique aspects of your company and its culture to make your business sound inviting and interesting to work for, ultimately making your job advertisements stand out from the crowd and piquing the interest of potential applicants.
Written content is obviously important for a job advertisement, however to ensure that your postings stand out from the competition you need to go the extra mile by incorporating high-quality, industry relevant images and videos to create an engaging and visually appealing advertisement that is bound to catch the attention of job seekers.
2. Choose the Right Online Job Boards and Websites
This one might sound obvious, of course online job websites maximise the reach and exposure of job advertisements, but not all of these platforms may align best with your business and its recruitment needs and you don’t want to just find any candidates, but the right candidates for your business. This is why it is imperative that you research these job sites before creating your job advertisements. Compare the reach, pricing and features of these different platforms to determine which ones align best with your recruitment needs.
Start by exploring the popular and general job sites such as Indeed, Seek and Glassdoor that will help you to reach a wide audience. After that, move on to industry specific job boards and forums that cater to your business’s niche. These sites will ensure that you not only find qualified candidates but people that will be interested in and passionate about working for your business.
Once you have chosen the correct platforms for your business, tailor your job postings to suit each individual platform and take advantage of their built-in features such as resumé databases and candidate matching algorithms. Many of these sites offer paid job advertisement options that not only help to boost visibility and reach but allow you to target specific demographics and locations. If you have considered investing in these options make sure that you set a budget and monitor the performance of your ads to ensure that you are getting a good return on investment.
3. Don’t Forget Social Media
In an ever increasing digitised age it's important that your business establishes a strong presence on professional online platforms such as LinkedIn. This presence comes in especially handy during the recruitment process as it allows you to share your business’s job postings with your connections and encourage your employees to do the same with their networks for extra reach and exposure.
While it’s necessary to build a strong presence on professional networks when recruiting online, it is also important to tap into the more traditional social media platforms to expand your recruiting efforts and advertising reach. Promote your open positions on your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram platforms and share your job postings to relevant groups and communities on these sites that are relevant to your industry. This helps you to reach a broader audience and attract more passive job seekers.
4. Harness the Power of Search Engine Optimisation
We always go on about the power of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and there is a reason why, it improves visibility and attracts more organic traffic and it’s no different for your job advertisements. By incorporating relevant keywords strategically in the job title and description of your postings you increase the chances of them appearing higher up in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Use keywords that are not only relevant to jobseekers, but also to your specific niche and industry.
However, don't just choose some keywords and call it a day, regularly monitor the performance of your job advertisements by tracking metrics such as the number of views and applications received and experiment with different keywords to determine what best generates the most traffic.
The modern world has changed the way businesses recruit new employees and that can be daunting for some, but by creating interesting job postings, choosing the correct job sites and utilising Social Media and SEO, you’ll be well on your way to finding passionate and hardworking people that want to build your business just as much as you do!