We needed superstars to join our team, but all we were getting were candidates who were not the right fit. We felt like recruiting was a wormhole of distraction. All this time was lost from fundraising, talking with clients, etc. I am sure the candidates also felt the same. We were not the right fit for each other.
But why?
How difficult can it be to get the right candidates to interview with my company? Maybe all the good ones want to work for the Google and Facebook of the world and not for my business?
I was having lunch with a friend and was moaning about this. His name is George. He was a copywriter and a business person in e-commerce. That’s how the discussion went:
– Me: I am only getting average candidates. We are probably too small to attract the right ones….I am fed up with losing time in interviews…
– George: Show me your job description….
– George: I read your job description and it was not good at all. If this was the landing page of one of my clients it would never convert. Do you mind if I rewrite it?
– Me: What do you mean not good at all? It’s inspiring and nice and a recruiter helped me write it.
– Me: Well it’s not converting. Thus it is not good.
What I learned with the help of my friend completely changed the way I recruit.
And it worked.
Copywrite Advice #1: Improve the title of the job description
In copywriting there is a famous quote from Oglivy: “On the average, five times more people read the headline than the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar”.
The same principle applies to job descriptions. I used to go with titles such as “Python developer needed for a tech startup”. This would not cut the chase. Candidates actively searching for a job apply by looking mostly at the title of the job description. I wasn’t optimizing for this fact. I wasn’t spending the 80 cents of my dollar correctly. It all changed when I optimized for the title. I started being specific, very specific about what I needed. Instead of “Python developer for an exciting startup” I did e.g. “Python Django back end dev with experience in big data databases” or another example for non-technical role “Project manager with experience in direct response funnels for e-commerce”.
This improved the quality of the candidates because I started getting more CVs with skills that were more specific to what I needed. It also improved my return on investment when I boosted my job descriptions on job boards. I started getting better CVs, thus more miles for my ad bucks.
Copywrite Advice #2: Make the first paragraph short and remove fluff
I was spending too much space at the beginning of the job description to tell everybody how awesome our company was and how it was going to change the world. Till I used a webpage tracker and realized everybody was skipping this part.
Candidates are like cold prospects. They do not know my company. They do not trust me. They do not need me to hard sell them on how awesome we are. In fact, they are tired of not hearing back from awesome world-changing companies that do not even reply to them to reject them after they apply. The last thing they want to hear is me bragging about my awesomeness.
Most of the candidates, especially the talented ones, just want to enjoy their work with awesome people to build awesome things. They become interested in your company if they move further down to the interview process. When they are applying they do not give a dime about my company. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that when I found an awesome CV and contacted the candidate they couldn’t even remember which my company was but did not want to sound weird about it.
That was something my CEO ego wasn’t allowing me to believe. I thought that the candidates should be jumping all over the board to get to work with me. I did not realize that good candidates are like cold prospects. You need to work to make them trust you. In fact I was so convinced that my awe-inspiring paragraph about how awesome my company was would convert the best that I installed this website tracker on the job descriptions and sent candidates to apply there. This is what I got as a result.
Basically, the candidates read the title, almost completely ignored my mumbo jumbo about the company, and moved to the requirements. They just ignored the paragraph that I was talking about our company and how awesome it is.
Copywrite Advice #3: Make the requirements very specific
I used to believe that I shouldn’t have very specific requirements in my job description. For example, python back-end developer should be enough. But how about frameworks? Tools? Is it better to be very specific? For example, back-end python developer with Django and MongoDB experience instead of just Python Back end?
Then I took the advice of my copywriter friend and decided to split-test. One job description is more vague and one with very specific skills. Nevertheless, in the one with the very specific skills I always mention that “you do not need to have all the skills, we will train you if need to”.
Results? The one with more specific requirements brought more highly qualified candidates than the vague one. Every single time.
Copywrite Advice #4: Make your call to apply sound-friendly and encouraging
The call to action part, according to my friend George the copywriter, is always a very important part of the copywriting process.
So how about our job description’s call to action? It usually sounds like “Apply for this Job”.
How about something more inviting? Friendlier? With promise that we will respect your time and keep you in the loop about the progress of your application. The call to action is the perfect opportunity to show candidates that we have a great culture as a company, starting from how we treat them from the very first interaction with us.
From our job description split tests, this one always converted the best:
If you’re interested in joining our team, we would love to see your resume and hopefully meet you in person if our company is a good fit for you. We move fast and we will respect your time, so if you’ve got what we’re looking for, you’ll be amazed at how fast we will move forward. Looking forward to meeting you!
It sounds inviting, friendly, and respectful to the candidate and their time. Job hunting is always an arduous and time-consuming process for the candidates. So how about we take this chance to show our qualities as a company and also increase our job applications?
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What do you think? What are your insights on the job description? Looking forward to learning from your experiences in the comments below.
Alex Louizos
Head of AI recruiters
