No doubt hiring the right candidate is essential for your business. Do you know that your business is only as good as your employees?
This simply means that the quality of employees you have is the quality of business that you are going to build, as human capital is one of the most important aspects of business. No wonder Bruna Martinuzzi says in this in his popular quote: “Hire people who are smarter than you are—whose talents surpass yours—and give them opportunities for growth…”
Now you know that hiring the right person is your path to building a business that will thrive, but how can you hire the right people if your job adverts cannot attract the kind of candidates you would love to hire?
If you have been getting a few or no job application for your job adverts, then one of these 4 factors is responsible for it:
1. Your Job Advert is Not Effective
One of the reasons you may not be getting enough or any application for your job adverts is not creating an effective job advert.
An effective job advert is one that gives the job candidate reasons why they should apply for the job advert and eventually become a part of your organization. One of the ways that you can create an effective job advert is to write a great job description.
The job description is an important aspect of the job ad that is usually overlooked. It is good you see yourself as an advertiser and your audience as the job seekers. What does an advertiser do?
An advertiser simply sells his/her product or services to the right audience to propel them to take an action (which in this case is to apply to your job adverts). This is how you can use your job description to attract more applications to your job ads:
Use the right job title(s) to reach the right audience
When it comes to writing a good job description, you should start by creating the right titles for your job adverts. Before you post your job adverts, take some time to think about the right title that will help you reach the right audience.
Make sure your job title is simple and clear enough to pass the right information about the expectation of the position to the job seeker. A `candidate should see your job title and be able to tell whether or not the job is for them. Avoid using descriptions like ninja, smooth, rooky in your titles.
Add benefits to make your job advert more appealing
The truth is that everyone wants something extra including job candidates. Job candidates look forward to working in companies that will better their lives in some form asides from the salaries they get. They want to work in a company that cares about other aspects of their lives.
You should add benefits that your company can afford to your job description. Benefits like: free lunch, gym facility, etc.
Add details about the company culture
Every company has its culture, the way they do things. Giving job candidates an opportunity to have a feel of your company even before they get there will also attract them to your job adverts.
Show the impact the position has on the company
Times have changed, and these generations of job candidates are not ready to go on with routine. They just want to get the job done. They are more interested in how they make an impact/add value to an organization.
They are interested in how their position contributes to the general success of the company. You can let them see this by showing them how they can make an impact with their daily responsibilities in the job description.
2. Your Expectations are Unrealistic
If you think your job posting is good enough, but it is still not attracting job candidates then it is time you take a look at your expectations for the position(s) that you are looking to fill.
Most times job candidates can spot a difficult job where the skills required to do the job and daily responsibilities do not in any match the remuneration for the position. When candidates see these kind of jobs, they simply move to search for opportunities somewhere else.
You can set an unrealistic expectation for your positions without even knowing it. It is true you should hire someone that is smarter than you, but how can you this without setting unrealistic expectations for your position?
You can avoid setting unrealistic expectations by doing the following:
Know what your company needs
This is one very important aspect of recruitment. You must identify what you need before you go search for someone that can meet the need. Knowing exactly what you need will help you create a realistic expectation for your potential employee.
For example:
If your business is just growing and you have been able to attract some clients, you can hire an entry-level with customer service personnel with few years of experience to manage these clients. You don’t need a customer service officer with 10 years of experience for your start-up business.”
You should also know the basic skill that a candidate requires to the job perfectly. You don’t have to add all the skills they are to your job descriptions. Emphasize the ones that makes it almost impossible for the job candidate to function without having them.
Offering the right compensation for the position
Most times employers are more concerned about hiring the right person, which is not bad at all, but they forget it doesn’t come cheap.
If you want to hire someone that has the right skills, attitude, and zeal to move your company forward, then you should be ready to pay the price. Hiring a top-notch candidate does not come cheap, because other companies will compete for them.
If your job description shows that you want an A+ candidate, then your salary budget for that position should be A+ as well. Candidates don’t mind going over and beyond while doing a job if they will be fairly compensated for it.
You can also do a little research to prevent creating an unrealistic expectation like:
3. You Job Adverts Don’t have Enough Visibility
It is one thing to have the perfect job posting, but it is another thing to get it to the eyes of candidates searching for these opportunities.
Things have changed, and your approach to reaching the right audience should change too. Gone are the days when you post a job ad and pray that the right candidate sees it. Now you have to intentionally bring it to the notice of people that need it.
You can have an amazing job ad, good expectation but still fail to reach the right audience. With the current trend of social media recruitment and thousands of job boards springing up each day, getting your job ads to the eyes of job seekers may not be easy at all.
If this has been your challenge, then you can consider doing a little research to improve your reach by asking yourself the following questions:
If you have done all the things listed above and your job posting doesn’t still have the visibility you need, then you need to ask yourself this last question:
Do I need the service of a recruitment company?
Since you can’t seem to get your job postings to the face of people that need it, then you should consider bringing someone else on board to take the hassle off you. Are you thinking about it already?
You don’t have to, MyJobMag is here and ready to ensure that your job openings gets right in the face of job candidates that are constantly searching for opportunities.
4. You Have some technical challenges
The reason you may not be getting enough applications for your job posting may be due to some technical challenges that you may not be aware of. If your application process or email is not working as well as it should, then candidates may abandon your job postings and go elsewhere to find job opportunities.
Once you create a job advert, make sure you go through all the application stages to make sure everything is fine before making the job posting public. You can look out for the following signs:
Make sure you are not leading job candidates to the wrong page
If you are not getting applications for your job postings maybe the job ad has expired on the platform that you used to advertise your job. Ensure that the page your are leading candidates to is functional and does not return a 404 or 403 error when they try to apply.
If a job ad has expired, you ca set up a re-direct to a similar job or to your general job page to prevent errors. These kind of errors can frustrate the effort of job candidates trying to apply for your job, asides from candidates experience it will also affect your data on candidate reach since no one will be able to successful apply.
Ensure your application process is not broken
Another technical issue that may be responsible for not getting applications for your job postings is having a broken link or having break in your online job application-tracking set-up.
For example, you may implement a candidate application tracking system starting from your job page to your ATS, then to your “thank you” after a candidate has completed a candidate have completed an online application in your ATS. If a tracking code has been removed from any of these points, then you may have some issues with the result you will get from your data.
Always ensure your tracking is in place.
Ensure you don’t have broken links
Always check your set-up to be sure your ATS is properly integrated with your job page. Check to make sure you don’t have any broken links or forms. Also test how your apply button works on all devices especially mobile, since most users use mobile.
Ensure your email is correct and has enough space for applications.
Bonus
Sometimes, the reason you are not getting applications for your job postings is simply that job candidates find your application process long and tortuous. If they manage to start, they will end up abandoning it at one point. Always make sure your application process is simple and straight forward.
Different factors can be responsible for you not getting applications for your job postings. While there may be other reasons why your jobs may not be receiving job applicants, we have discovered that these are the common ones.