It’s commonly said that a recruiting soft spot is writing job offers. All very well and good, but you might find yourself asking where exactly you’re going wrong if the adverts you put together are more hard sell than sell-out.
Luckily for you, JobisJob has the answer. Of the two-sentence key snippets of job description featured on our site, we’ve analysed the most commonly-used vocabulary of the top hundred – those which provoked the greatest amount of users to click on “view more”. These are the conclusions we’ve drawn from the results.
The language of successful job descriptions
These are the forty most frequently-used words of top job adverts. Please note that anything referring to a specific type of job or destination has been removed:
We’ve identified five key features of these results:
Applicants described in exacting terms:
It seems that jobseekers like a challenge. Job offers which include words and phrases such as “experienced”…”with experience”…”able”…”professional” are far more likely to have a higher hit rate. In less successful job offers, the word “experience” also came up, but this was often in the context of “no experience necessary”.
Detailed description of working conditions:
More than anything, the most interesting thing about the terms used to describe the location, hours and duties of the work in hand is the fact that there’s lots of them. This suggests that, even within just a two-sentence snippet, candidates responded best to a detailed description of what was on offer.
Calls to action:
Successful job adverts contained a relatively high percentage of phrases such as “apply now”, “currently recruiting” and “immediate start”, which suggest job seekers respond best to offers which contain some kind of time pressure and can offer opportunities here and now. So if your job offer falls into this category, don’t forget to point it out.
A sense of a team:
People are social animals, and it’s worth bearing in mind that (although these were not as frequent as words describing hours or location), successful job adverts have a couple of words which give some kind of impression of a team scattered around.
Striking descriptions of the company/job:
Successful job adverts don’t just sell standard jobs in Joe Bloggs Co. down the street. They offer national opportunities at leading firms. In particular, an interesting trend seems to be that jobseekers prefer to apply for a position that has some kind of country-wide recognition than posts with a local feel. In less successful job offers, terms such as “UK” and “national” were used with far less frequency. In short, if you can make any kind of claim to being a part of something big or exciting, you should do so.
And finally, it seems the best-written job adverts mind their manners, with “please” being a commonly-used magic word in the top one hundred offers.
Does this match your experience? If not, what conclusions would you draw from this information? Don’t hesitate to write in and let us know what you’re thinking.
- If you liked this post, you might also be interested in reading “How to write a job advert 1 (infographic)”.