Employer Advice

Writing Effective Job Advertisements

Like any copywriting task you need first to figure out who your ad is aimed at and to try to ensure that your copy is:

1. speaking the right language.
2. conveying the "character" of the company.
3. requesting the precise experience you are seeking.
4. honestly alluding to the benefits, career path and kind of future the position could lead to.

By all means include important descriptive info – like, for example, "award winning" or "small team" or "highly creative" or "fast growing" or "rural location" or "internationally renowned" or "highly profitable" – whatever you think helps candidates to form their own picture of your business and the opportunity on offer and why yours is the best position to apply for. It is as much your job to generate qualified response as it is the role of the applicants to interpret whether they are or might be a good fit for the brief and to sell themselves to your company ...

It is worth looking at other recruiter's copy in print media and online regularly to find good examples that you can adapt for your own use. Some businesses are brilliant at using their recruitment ads not only to attract candidates but to support their brands. Remember, a surprising number of people always scan the job ads they come across not necessarily because they are thinking of moving on themselves but out of general interest or on behalf of others or to measure what they might be worth in the general market.

What is vital these days is that you don't fall foul of the law in your recruitment campaigns - you cannot these days specify:

1. Gender.
2. Age.
3. nationality – though you can ask for proof of eligibility to work in the UK – or fluency in certain languages when appropriate to the position.

Start with your heading – you'll obviously need to state the job title but you can do more than this to stand out to the right candidates ..if for example you want to attract applicants in your merchandise sector you'd qualify that ... for example:

• Marketing Programme Manager: B2B office supplies dealer group
• Catalogue Designer: high ticket fashion house
• Brand Controller: multi-brand multi-channel kitchen wares group
• General Manager - Operations: fast growing garden products retailer
• Contact Centre Supervisor : 30 strong in/out bound B2B team
• Assistant Merchandiser: dual channel childrenswear business

The more specific you are the better refined the applicant list – remember to ask yourself as many questions as you think a candidate might ask of you ... where you are located, how big the team or the business is, what the reporting line for the role is, how successful the business is, whether this is a new position or recruitment for a replacement, what qualifications are expected, how much experience is required, etc etc etc

If you need candidates with highly specific skills then be sure to state them clearly as no one can second guess exactly what attributes you are looking for. Also the more specific you are in outlining the minimum qualifications, experience and background type you require, the lower the number of applications you will receive – whilst this may seem perverse, remember it is a very specific skill and background set you are seeking not dozens of speculative applications from all kinds of unsuitable wannabes which will waste valuable time for all concerned.

Be sure to state your location (even if only indicating the region) and if you require only candidates already residing within commuting distance then be sure to say so. Better that than waste hours on candidates hoping for relocation assistance who may not be available fro months, or who may purely be interested in taking up work in areas local to them.

If you have an existing recruitment section on your website then opt to have interested applicants who see your ads click thru to it for more information on your business in general and on the opening you are trying to fill. Or send a link to all candidates when you receive their initial applications, that way many of their questions can be answered without needing to be voiced. Many companies also find it is beneficial to host profiles of existing staff members in the recruitment area of their websites or, if they are seeking applications for a range of roles, to take out high profile multi-role recruitment ads that links to a micro-site which contains the finite details for each of the positions available. Other businesses routinely advertise themselves as being in the market for talent in certain fields throughout the year as, particularly for skill sets which are in the highest demand.

This website guarantees that any ad you place will be seen by a wide range of prospective candidates with experience in the catalogue, home shopping and multi-channel sector. Spanning all merchandise specialities – business to business and consumer you can be highly specific in your requirements and find the very best matches right here. We also reach a significant number of specialist suppliers to the sector including direct response and web agencies, media planners and buyers, IT solutions providers, creatives, database marketing specialists and more – as such we are an ideal medium for any supplier businesses seeking individuals with client side experience and vice versa...

Welcoming New Employees

We have all been "the new kid on the block" at some time in our lives and can probably recall how excruciating some of those earlier moments in our new role were. First of all we didn't know anyone or where they were in the pecking order or who we were OK to ask simple questions of. Chances are we were plonked down with a pile of stuff to read through and left to wait until whoever was supposed to be helping us get settled made themselves known to us. We may even have arrived on our first day to find that no one was expecting us let alone briefed to sort out a desk and get us into the swing of things. Or we got someone who clearly couldn't be bothered to take their time over introductions during a whirlwind tour of myriad offices, departments and individuals whose names or functions couldn't possibly be remembered ... and who gushed through their own potted and skewed version of what the company does without a thought for how the poor newcomer can process or retain any of it. I am sure this is sounding horribly familiar to lots of you and that some of you may even be hanging your heads in shame ...

OK, so we know how horrid it is to be treated like that ... so why do most of our employees still do it to our new recruits ? It doesn't have to be like that.

Decide what would make it easier for any newcomer to begin to settle in and feel ready to commence with the job they were hired to do. And decide who should do it – some of your employees will be naturals at putting newcomers at their ease and can be trusted to do a thorough and proper job of it. Much depends on the role, of course, but the very least a company should do is have one person become the primary contact for any new recruit in all matters so that questions can be freely asked and answered in a relaxed "off the record" manner. The allotted person should be a patient, friendly soul who will go out of their way to help the new recruit find their way around. The simple stuff like how to get hold of stationery, where the cloakrooms are, and, if appropriate, where the canteen or kitchen facilities are. How the phones are answered in that department and who the primary people in the department are. Who deals with payroll and will require things like P45 and personal details. Sorting out the new recruit's password and log on, employee handbook and any other documentation like organisation flow charts, internal contact lists, any scheduled meetings etc... It is nothing more than basic orientation but can make a massive difference in that first day/early day period when everything is blindingly new.

Thereafter you need to be sure that whoever is supervising or orienting your new recruit is fully aware of that person's new role and what skills and talents they bring to it. There can be nothing worse than noses put suddenly out of joint or negative attitudes from existing employees souring the new recruit's first taste of your business. It is important that management is clear in its support and welcome for the new recruit and that reporting lines are transparent. It can be the case that an internal candidate will have been rejected in favour of a more experienced external recruit – and it is important in these instances that both sides understand the reasons behind the decision and are asked to fully co-operate with each other. Sometimes fall out is inevitable if resentments go deep and are allowed to fester ... Sometimes individuals simply cannot get along at a personal level or their working styles are so different as to create serious rifts. But most of the time if individuals have their own clear cut goals and want to succeed in them, they can and they will set aside personal differences to achieve them.

Again it is the role of management, whose primary focus must be to get maximum performance from everyone for the good of the business, to get to the bottom of and address any problems before they become insurmountable. Frequently it is the old guard that is the problem, not the newcomer, yet it is often the newcomer who will up and leave as soon as an alternative position arises rather than commit to staying in a hostile environment. The role then, of the entire team and its management, is to put differences aside and ensure that any new recruit is enabled to start making a measurable contribution as soon as possible.