Making Shared Jobs Less Like Wallpaper

Are you sharing job ads on LinkedIn and other social networking sites? If so, make sure that you’re not making this one big mistake.

If you want people to click on your shared job postings on LinkedIn, you need to give them a good reason. I’d say that at least 90% of the job posts that I see on LinkedIn come with a message like this:

Hey, everyone! Check out this job, it’s a great role!

Or alternatively, perhaps you’ve seen something like this:

Come and join my company ABC! It’s a great place and I’d love to have you join me!

Breaking through the noise

The problem with messages like that is that they’re exactly what the last dozen people said. How many times have you seen an update like this? A hundred? A thousand? Even more?

Sharing job listings like this just makes them part of the background noise in people’s social media feeds. They’re just wallpaper.
I get it, it’s hard to find talent for your company. I hear it every day from people at companies of all shapes and sizes and across all sorts of different industries. From what I’ve heard, it’s a universal problem.

But that doesn’t mean that you should make it even more difficult by posting wallpaper.

You need to break through the noise if you want to be heard, and there’s a super simple way to do that. You need to tell your story.

Show people why you’re so awesome. Show them why people choose to work with you and why they stay with you for years on end.

True, it takes more work and more thought to do this, but it’s also super effective – and it’ll cost you less than it will if you call me to recruit for you. And if it’s done well, it can be a great branding tool for your company.

Not sure what to post?

If you’re not sure what to post, start small. Share something unique about the culture like a project that the role will be involved in or a pain point that people in that role typically experience, along with how the company will eliminate or minimize it.

Don’t share an award win, because a lot of people question those. There are some companies that only exist to hand out spurious awards that make people feel good but that don’t add any value to either the company or its customers.

If you’re encouraging your employees to share the job listing, don’t just send them the link and say “share this”. Give them 2-4 ideas of commentary that they can add and then ask them to tweak it and make it their own.

If you’ve built a solid culture then you can trust them, and you’ll be amazed at how good they can be at promoting you. Heck, ask them for ideas and make it a contest!

If you as the recruiter don’t know all of the details, ask the hiring leader to provide them. I get that sometimes you can be dealing with a couple of dozen requests at a time, so when that happens, start with the top five. People will see the trend and they’ll start to be more proactive in coming forward.

Bringing in the lurkers

This approach brings in what I call the lurkers: the people who are intrigued by the message and think that your company is different and worth working for. People want authenticity, not sterile job descriptions and ads that can double up as wallpaper.

I make a living from filling job vacancies, and I’ve filled hundreds of roles throughout the years using these kinds of creative job posts. Often, people have told me, “I wasn’t actually looking for a new role, but I was intrigued by your post and I had to find out more.”

Don’t obsess about the number of likes and comments that you do or don’t receive, because they’re not a true reflection of success. They’re just vanity metrics.

After all, the best candidates won’t like or comment on your posts because if they’re looking for a new job role, they won’t want their colleagues to know. I often get emails, private messages and even in-person comments about posts, rather than direct responses to the updates.

Companies are screaming out for talent, yet they keep on posting wallpaper and just shouting into the avoid. Instead, they should be telling their story, because those that do are the companies that attract the best talent.

Give it a try sometime. You might just be surprised by how well it works.

REVOLUTIONIZING YOUR RECRUITING METHODS
STARTS WITH ONE CHAT:

THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST TALENT IS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS