We work out the essentials of the position – what we need, and what we have to offer. Then, I write a non-traditional ad: minimize the bullets, minimize the technical requirements unless they are absolute deal-breakers, and write the ad as if it’s personally addressed to the person reading it. The tone of the ad lets people know that this is a pretty intersting, unique, and enjoyable place to work.

Once we adopted this approach, the number of applicants increased, and the percent of them who were appropriate for us culturally jumped too. Not only that, but when they apply, they say things like ‘I want to work for a company that writes ads like this’, ‘thank you for writing this ad’, and ‘I’m not applying, but I have forwarded this ad on to my network because it’s such a great read’.

That last bit is probably what has made these ads work so well – they go viral on us.

Niche boards that effectively reach a specialty (be it technology, audit, tax, SOX, legal) can also effectively sell opportunities to a particular community. They have the knowledge to help the employer write an ad that not only contains the right technical content (whether it’s .Net, risks/controls, transfer pricing, accounting controls or tort law), but because they are inevitably going to be closer to their members base, will also know how to sell that position; they will know what aspects of the positions to highlight. Furthermore, since they are targeted at their niche, the candidates will be more inclined to be the types of professionals intent on managing and progressing their career. Just the type of candidate pool an employer would be hunting for; not just a job seeker but a motivated professional.

There’s real value that strategic Recruitment Advertising agencies deliver to their clients every day. Contrary to John’s ‘Old World’ view, the Recruiter of today has little time to go through a multi-step process of rewriting volumes of job descriptions. And really, that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

The best Recruitment Marketing firms partner with their clients’ internal Marketing Departments but few internal Marketing Departments have the time, the resources,the inclination, and the niche expertise to cost-effectively provide all of their company’s Employment Marketing in a timely manner. They are busy helping to drive revenue for their organizations by supporting the Sales function.

Generally, it is more effective for a Recruiting department to outsource to a firm that specializes in Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing…not just a generic ‘marketing firm’ or worse, a ‘marketing intern’. By partnering with a strategic Recruitment Marketing firm, Recruiting Departments have greater control, faster delivery, and a superior product. To denigrate the value delivered by strategic Recruitment Marketing firms is misguided at best, and potentially damaging to firms who need to compete for talent.

Typically, John, you like to showcase ‘best practices’ but I am afraid you’ve missed the boat on this one. The market has changed. The ‘best practices’ Recruiter of today needs to partner with multiple providers to create a blend of ‘Technology Tools’, ‘Employer Branding’, and ‘Recruitment Marketing’ expertise to be successful.

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‘If necessary, hire a marketing or sales intern, or even an outside marketing firm (not recruitment advertising), as Cisco did in the late 1990s.’

‘Anyone with a strong marketing or sales background can rewrite a position description in little more than a few minutes.’

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[pardon the centering of the type]

While I do not claim that recruitment advertising agencies are without sin, may I respectfully remind John that some of us in recruitment advertising have been extolling the benefits of writing candidate-friendly position descriptions for years. The new recruitment advertising agency is more in tune with contemporary marketing techniques than John would have you believe. We?re way past the Cisco 1990s and have spotted Godin?s Purple Cow!

In my practice, I have witnessed how well-intentioned marketing generalists can also fail to deliver recruitment communications that work. Some of the work I?ve seen suffers from a lack of a strong employee value proposition, feature poor call-to-response mechanisms and show a general misunderstanding of the recruitment process, budgets, and media.

As with anything in life, there are some brilliant examples of marketing departments stepping up to the recruiting plate. We have the pleasure of collaborating with some of the best. But all too often marketing and public relation departments are focused on promoting a company?s products and services and may have scarce resources and time to devote to writing position descriptions.

How quickly can a position description be written? Can an intern do it just as well? While writing a position description may not be the most challenging thing in the world, writing effectively for different media may present more of a hurdle for those not accustomed to recruitment media. Some things do take a little longer: optimizing a job title for a search engine or writing an effective Google AdWords campaign for example.

What I often do find challenging is getting buy-in to a better ?position description? from the hiring manager or from the ultimate decision maker.

Recently, we have argued for, and have facilitated, the training of hiring managers in the various ?job marketing? techniques available today. We also educate individuals on the differences between position-based advertising and branding communications. This training is best done well in advance of writing a pressing position description. I believe that this is a good way to establish common ground between HR, the hiring managers, and the marketing professionals
(the agency in our case).

So I?d recommend to our friends in recruitment that before they run into their busy marketing departments they contact their recruitment advertising agency and challenge them to: A) write more effective position descriptions and B) to help educate others in their organization about the power of effective recruitment advertising and marketing.

I could go on but have to get back to work in recruitment advertising!

A note of appreciation: I?m generally thrilled to read John?s opinions and admire him for the time and effort he devotes to the field. Hope we can talk some more at the ERE Conference in FL. Looking forward to listening to Seth Godin as well!