How To Write Job Descriptions & Adverts To Attract Top Recruitment Talent For Your Agency

I spent the majority of my career working agency side and wherever I worked, I would have to write my own job adverts and in some cases help clients write their job descriptions too. In 2018 I moved in-house and ended up working for a major international media owner. I was one of the first members of a brand new team and as part of that I ended up setting up a lot of our talent operations and processes. One of those was the job description template for the wider group but also specifically for the two departments I managed. I had an absolutely brilliant manager at the time and was honestly surprised when she asked me to pretty much spend a whole week writing and re-writing the job description template. I spent around 40 hours honing that template and it was damn near perfect at the end!  

There are people in the industry who make a career out of this and I would always defer to them but I’ve written thousands of job adverts and hundreds of job descriptions in my career (along with reading dozens of job ads in preparation for this article). I’ve also worked for major media companies and advertising agencies so I know a bit about the subject of job descriptions and advertising. I understand the market is candidate heavy at the moment but in my opinion you should always be aiming to sell to your prospective talent, no matter what the market is like. 

I’m writing this piece from the perspective of attracting recruitment talent to come and work for your recruitment business, specifically targeting experienced or junior hires to work for you. We’re not targeting people who need another job, we’re targeting people who could be attracted by a better job. And remembering we’re selling to them, so brush up on your FAB, DIPADA, AIDA, SPIN and Challenger sales techniques before working on your job description and adverts. 

Company Website 

Before I jump into this I want to talk about the context of your job description / job advert - your website and specifically your careers / work for us page. You could write the most amazing job advert, selling the virtues of your company, the benefits, the amazing commission structure, the learning and development opportunities, chance for promotion and so on. However if your website is a bit crap then you’re really going to struggle. Of course people will still apply but you’re going to lose some good applicants along the way. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Make sure you’ve got a great looking website. 

The Opening Line

The opening line can be your killer, your attention grabber - if written and delivered well. If someone is looking around for a new company to join they could easily scroll through a dozen or a hundred job adverts. Most of them will blend into the same company but we’ll make sure they remember your agency and they make a note to chase up on their application. We’ll make sure they want to work for your agency. Deliver a great first line! 

Tell Me About You

I’m sure you know everything about your recruitment agency and I’m sure you believe your agency is amazing. Who knows maybe you truly are a top 3 agency in your sector. My point is that people outside of your organisation won’t know much about your company at all.  Start off by talking through your company, its foundations, goals, objectives, aims, values, growth, awards, founders, sectors, offices, number of staff, etc. People want to join companies that are not only stable but companies that are growing and expanding with purpose. Give me an overview of your business in a paragraph - essentially your elevator pitch. 

Plain & Simple

Make your job adverts & descriptions as easy as possible to read. Ensure that your readers can easily understand you. Keep it simple and to the point. Use short sentences, use white space, keep paragraphs to no more than 10 lines. Everything you learned back in school. 

The Best Of The Best 

The majority of job adverts and job descriptions are bad so don't use them as a template for yours. Of course there are some brilliant job adverts and descriptions and if you’re going to use someone else's work as a source of inspiration then that’s totally fine but just spend some time finding the best adverts. Don’t settle for mediocrity.  

Cliches

Drop cliche words such as “fast-paced”, “dynamic”, “team player”, “proactive” and “can-do attitude”. Hopefully you wouldn’t use any of these phrases if you were at home with your family or sitting with friends or even in the office. They’re lazy and they make your agency sound like all the others out there. 

Tone

Try to keep the tone a little informal. I find it works in the large majority of cases. Of course if you run an executive search firm and you only hire consultants from red brick universities with an MBA then by all means keep it formal but for everyone else, let’s keep it relaxed. 

Market Research

Don’t be afraid to do a little A/B testing too. Maybe you work for a large recruitment agency and you’re continually on the lookout for new talent. Don’t just stick to the same advert over and over again, mix it up a little, try a few different versions for each job and look at the number and quality of applications each version receives. Just because you think a particular job advert or description is the best, doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best. Use the data to gauge the success of your adverts.  Also ask your applicants what they thought of the advert and job description and what they would change - take this advice on board. 

Reviews

Look internally at your organisation and look at the Glassdoor reviews for your competitors. Are there a list of reasons that people tend to leave recruitment or leave recruitment agencies? Compile a list and make sure you address these issues at your agency and bring them up in your job ads or descriptions, talking about how you’ve approached and solved these common consultant complaints.  

Benefits

What is your company's benefit package? Is it any good? If they’re not then I’d recommend upping your benefits game. Of course I want to know about the salary and the commission but I also want to know about the benefits. I’m a bit older now so benefits such as a high pension contribution, private healthcare for my family, and private dental care are the benefits I really want to see. List all of your benefits and leave the legal requirements stuff for the bottom of the ad or the contract. 

One Final Thing

My one piece of takeaway advice is to invest time in writing your job description and job ads. Don’t just quickly hurry them out and post them to your website and LinkedIn. Spend some time writing them, re-write them, run them past colleagues for their thoughts and perspective and take on that feedback and re-write them again. 

Guest blog written by Robert Garner
Rob has been working within the recruitment industry since 2006, selling recruitment advertising space, working within recruitment, running his own recruitment firm, launching job boards, working for in-house talent acquisition teams and creating enterprise level recruitment software. He now runs Abstraction Labs (https://abstractionlabs.co.uk/), designing and developing websites for recruitment agencies.