I often am asked, “What is the easiest way to improve the number of top applicants who actually decide to apply for jobs?” The answer is easy: Rewrite your position descriptions so that they excite candidates rather than turn them off. It’s easy to do and it produces dramatic results.
Employed Top Performers Require a “Better Job”
Unemployed people and semi-anxious people are significantly less picky about applying for open job opportunities, and in some cases apply for any and every job. The job title matters little to them, and no matter how mundane the position description is, they will apply. Any job is a better job to them. But what few people know who haven’t researched the topic is that the very highest quality candidates have estimated drop off rates as high as 90% once they have scanned your position description. Top performers are curious just like everyone else; however, all of your efforts in branding and marketing to get these high-quality candidates to look at your jobs becomes an immediate waste after they scan your position description and then immediately move on because they see no indication that this job is superior to or better than the job they already have. Here are four facts to consider:
Missing Your First Sales Opportunity
If you want to dramatically increase the number of high-quality candidates who apply directly to you, you must first realize that after your company’s image, the first opportunity you have to really excite them about your firm and this particular job is when they begin to read the actual position description. Your position description is, in essence, your first and perhaps last sales opportunity. Incidentally, you are not alone in missing this opportunity; literally 98% of all firms skip this tremendous opportunity to wow and excite potential candidates with an exciting description of their next job.
Why Do Employed Top Performers Drop Off So Quickly?
A firm’s well-crafted employment brand and image can be dashed almost immediately when high-quality potential candidates find that the position description doesn’t match the positive image they had of the firm. Quality candidates will immediately assume this is not a better job when they see:
Position Descriptions Are Written By Some of the Dullest People on the Planet
Let’s cut to the quick here: Position descriptions are almost always written by people with little knowledge or interest in marketing or sales. Most position descriptions are written by a combination of the following individuals:
Compensation people. Not a pink shirt among them (an inside marketing joke). There is literally no chance that they’ve taken a marketing or sales course. When asked what criteria they use to put together position descriptions, they almost universally acknowledge that they populate them using “compensable factors” from some (antiquated) job-factor matrix or index. Dullsville.
Hiring managers. They are almost always universally too busy to spend time on position descriptions. They generally just take an old one and modify it slightly, or even worse, accept what the job analysis people from compensation recommend. Even hiring managers in marketing and sales are not exempt from this malady. Recruiters. Most great recruiters are great marketing and sales people; unfortunately, greater recruiters literally hate to write position descriptions. Mostly, it’s because they’re so busy; so when forced, they rush to put them together. Some even delegate this task to junior recruiters or those non-recruiters that I call “requisition managers.” These requisition managers invariably make a special attempt to leave anything bold or controversial out of their position descriptions, so that they can successfully get the requisition approved (which is their only goal).
Marketing, sales, or PR. Only a handful of firms have figured out that right within their own organization, they have powerhouse people who can guide recruiting in making their position descriptions exciting. Unfortunately, like the Maytag repairman, they are seldom called upon to advise on this sales opportunity.
Fixing the Problem is Easy, Quick, and Inexpensive
For years, recruiters have been using boring position descriptions. With the advent of the Internet, the practice has become even more prevalent because it is so easy for a firm to put massive numbers of job descriptions on a job board or its own website. If you are recruiter or a recruiting manager and you want to both wow currently employed people and build a competitive advantage for your firm, it is essential that you revisit how you sell individual. I might also add that by turning your position descriptions into powerful sales tools, you will lighten your workload because the ratio of “turkeys” to top performers who approach you will be reversed almost overnight. Next week, Part 2 of this article will address the action steps required to transform position descriptions into more exciting position sales sheets.
