How To Write Job Ads For Humans

If you care about hiring smart people then you’re going to have to market to them, and the first way you’ll do that is through your job ads.
You can’t expect talented people with other options — the only job applicants who can help you — to respond to a job ad that drones on and on about all the requirements The Selected Candidate must possess, without mentioning a word about why a smart person would want the job.
When employers complain about the quality and/or volume of responses to their job ads, they’re barking up the wrong tree. Their biggest problem is the job ads themselves! They are talent repellents.
No one with an ounce of self-esteem is going to submit a resume or application to a company whose overarching recruiting theme is “You’d better be good enough for us!”
Your job ads reach a lot more people than just folks who might actually apply for the job. They reach people who have job-hunting friends, and they reach your customers and prospective customers too. You’re marketing to the entire community in a job ad, the same way you are in your customer-facing marketing campaigns.
A good job ad is one that gives a job-seeker plenty of good reasons to throw his or her hat in the ring — even if they weren’t thinking about changing jobs before they saw your ad!

Put a Human Voice In  Your Job Ad
You can put a human voice in your job ad and increase the sparkiness and number of responses you get. A Human-Voiced Job Ad has six components:

• Hook
• Description of the Role
• Reasons to Learn More
• Salary Range
• Logical Gate
• Path to Learn More

Your Hook is a reason for a reader to keep reading your job ad rather than turning away. Most job ads fail miserably at keeping an audience member’s attention. They either say “We have an immediate need for….” or they jump into the forty-five things they expect the new hire to have already done. That’s insane! Marketing to the talent community is no different than marketing to anyone else. People need a reason to tune in.