Put These 3 Things in Your Ad to Attract Quality Candidates

Maximize your compensation & benefits package – what’s in it for them?

For many reasons, a large amount of employers are opting to leave the salary band out of their ads. While this tactic grants benefits such as negotiating pay based on individuals' skill levels and avoiding their employees benchmarking their own pay against colleagues, it can also rule out star candidates. According to Seek, ads with the salary visible have an average increase of 46% more applicants, with 25% of job seekers saying they simply won’t apply for a role without a visible salary.

If you’re not on board with including a salary, here are some ideas to maximize your compensation package to attract quality candidates:

Flexible working options

Some examples of this might be: school hours friendly, starting late and avoiding rush hour, swapping a public holiday for a day you’d prefer or an early finish on Fridays. According to a report by Randstad, 83.2% of Australian workers consider flexibility in the workplace to be important to them.

Work from home or remote options

Whether it’s one day per week or a full-time option, this incentive has been a growing trend, with CareerBuilder reporting that jobs allowing work from home options saw seven times more applications than in-person roles.

Discounts, benefits, healthcare & EAP

With the cost of living on the rise, candidates are more aware of the extra benefits offered by prospective employers. From mental health services to gym memberships. Get creative about what you can offer your employees to stand out from the crowd.

Clarity of day-to-day duties – what will they be doing?

No more ambiguity, industry jargon or over-complicated job ads. Keep it simple and relatable. Keeping it clear and concise is a good way to make sure the candidate can easily identify if they would be a fit for the job or not. Making this decision process for candidates too difficult may steer people away.

Keep in mind many candidates may be transferring from another industry with some great transferable skills and a fresh perspective; don’t deter them with industry-specific jargon.

Giving your potential applicants a clear idea of what they will be doing day-to-day will provide clear expectations and increase retention. Whilst the outcomes and goals of the role are essential, for example, ‘work toward KPI’s to increase revenue and quality outcomes’, also consider including the details of how, as an actionable task, such as: ‘you will deliver outbound calls to an existing database of clients to offer new services’.

Seek has released statistics that 69% of people find it frustrating when there’s not enough information about the role in an ad. Keywords also help to rank your search higher!

Keep your requirements realistic – you don’t want to alienate a potential star candidate.

Similar to the above, over-expecting and over-complicating role requirements can lead to lower application rates. Consider avoiding industry-specific requirements where possible to open up the pool for those migrating from other industries.

A widely known statistic shared by the Harvard Business Review and Forbes tells us that men often apply for a job when they meet just 60% of the qualifications, but women tend to apply only if they meet 100%. Try reducing the requirements on the ad and using pre-screening as a process of elimination instead.