When I used to speak about job postings in person, I would always ask the room “who here is proud of their job postings?” Every once in a while, a hand or two went up, but they were rare. Usually the follow up to that question from the audience would be, "well, can you take a look at my job post?"
Even without job post writing training, they know how bad those job posts are. I mean, if you’ve ever read, well, any job post on the internet - you know what bad job posts look like. They include a lot of buzzwords without saying anything at all, are way too long, and leave the person on the other side wondering what the hell this person is talking about.
But measuring what is good? That's a whole different ball game. Most recruiters have no idea what good looks like, let alone how to measure it or create one for themselves.
What Measures A Good Job Post?
While job postings are the currency of recruiting - you can’t hire or fire without them - the only education most recruiters get on job postings is what they see on the internet. Which means, inevitably, they're copying and pasting the same awful posts that exist today and expecting different results. That's not good.
A good posting starts with a blank sheet of paper to create results that deliver consistently. What are those results? For every team it varies, but these are the results most people want (and do) see.
- Shorter time to slate i.e. time from post to shortlist. Look, we can’t control the oh-so unpredictable variable also known as “humans,” but we can make it clear what we’re looking for so that the right people apply. If the right people apply, we only need 1 applicant.
- Shorter time to apply. By choosing job titles wisely and writing something anyone can understand, we get applicants more quickly.
- Ratio of qualified to unqualified candidates. If you get 30 applicants, how many are qualified? How many aren’t? When we ask more clearly, the number of "qualified" in that pile goes up.
- More diverse backgrounds in the applicant pool. When we ask a different way, different people apply. Especially when we remove the bias from those bullets. You can learn how to do that here.
