Benefits, benefits, benefits
Thanks to Sarah Potter for allowing us to share this image, part of a job ad for a chief copywriter. Here’s the link to her post and its 19 (so far) comments.
Sarah is one of our ‘star students’. She attended one of our early courses when she was a recruiter, unleashed her talent as a wordsmith, and has gone on to make a career as a copywriter and content creator.
Copywriters are particularly fussy about copy, as you’d expect. Apart from the points Sarah has highlighted, there’s also a typo which will make copywriters twitchy. Can you spot it?
Yes, it’s important to spell out the benefits of the job you’re advertising. Not the legal benefits. The reasons why someone should take a chance and jump from their current position (assuming they’re employed). The answers to the question in their mind, which is ‘What’s in it for me?‘
Then, when you’ve identified what the real benefits are, put them in the top half of your ad. If you don’t, people are unlikely to read to the end. Why should they?
Use the first part of the ad to sell, and the second part to tell.
If you’d like to learn to write job advertisements that answer the question “What’s in it for me?”, you should take a look at our recruitment copywriting training courses.
If you would like more thoughts and musings on recruitment, you might want to download Mitch’s free book “On Recruitment”.
