What’s the difference between a job description and a job advert?
Many people who work in HR and Recruitment seem to think a job advert and a job description are somehow interchangeable.
At the risk of coming across like a pedant, I think it’s important that we clarify their respective functions because expecting one to do the job of the other is doomed to failure.
When you say “job description” do you really mean “job advert”?
A job description’s purpose is to describe, in detail, what a particular job consists of.
A job advert’s purpose is to sell that particular job. To make the right people want to find out more.
One informs, the other attracts. Or to put it even more bluntly, one tells, the other sells.
Which sells better, a description or an advert?
When you’re scanning the market to possibly replace your old washing machine, do you decide which model is right for you by reading lots of user manuals? Is it the numbered arrow pointing to the door that every machine has, or the fact that it fits into the gap in your kitchen that any other washing machine would, that makes you decide to buy?
Let’s face it; you don’t, and it isn’t.
In this analogy, the washing machine manual is the job description – and it’s the same job description that everyone is peddling, hoping to attract new buyers – or in our case, candidates.
So you need to do what Hotpoint, Zanussi, Samsung, and Bosch have been doing for years. You need to create an advert.
Write a job advert, not a job description
When looking at new jobs, potential candidates are bombarded with job description after job description; all looking and sounding the same, and none of them standing out from the other.
Which means if hiring the right people is important, then writing a job advert is important.
It’s especially important if it’s for a job that is specialised in some way In other words, if it’s for a role where the majority of the target candidates are unlikely to be unemployed and/or be in short supply.
You need to sell these types of roles because;
- Most of these people won’t be desperate for another job.
- Many of them will be open to exploring a job that might improve their situation in some way.
Don’t describe the job, advertise it
Most potential candidates will want to know how working for your company (or client) will specifically make their life more rewarding. Putting something like “you’ll get the opportunity to help us achieve our growth targets” isn’t how to do this.
What might turn them on are things such as;
- Learning/Training
- Bigger challenge
- Better rewards
- More autonomy
- Work/Life balance
- Remote working
Or it could be one of potentially hundreds of other benefits you might be able to offer that they might not be getting from their current employer.
What’s in it for them?
The easiest way to get anyone interested in anything is to let them know what’s in it for them.
And the easiest way to get someone to read your job advert right to the end is to tell them what’s in it for them. And to do it as quickly as possible.
Then write it in a conversational, friendly tone. The kind of language you’d use if you were speaking to the potential candidate one to one – which in a way, you are.
And, if your job ad reads like it was written by a real person rather than by the Legal/Compliance department, they’re more likely to believe you when you say you have a “great culture”.
If you need to know more about creating job adverts, not job descriptions, our Copywriting Training Course is a good place to start.
