How to fix your job postings to attract more applicants

If you’re struggling to get qualified applicants to apply to open roles, your job postings are probably to blame.

“Job seekers deserve someone to sit down and write 250 words that tell you exactly what they’re looking for,” said Katrina Kibben, founder and CEO of recruiting and bias training platform Three Ears Media, at the annual HR Transform conference on Monday in Las Vegas. “Every time we put an ask out there, there’s someone with a dream on the other side and they deserve to be seen.”

Employees want to be able to visualize the job they’re being asked to do and clearly understand the expectations of the role if they plan to put in the work to make a career leap, Kibben says. However, job postings are typically too long, convoluted and filled with “lies and cliches,” they say.

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Instead of relying on buzzwords and phrases like ‘top talent,’ ‘ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment,’ or ‘team player,’ Kibben encourages employers to get hyper-specific. List clearly the experience and expectations you want these new employees to have in their first few months on the team.

“A good job posting just tells the truth,” they said. “Make it clear: this is the work you will do in the first 30, 60 or 90 days for you to have the impact that we hired you for.”

That specificity can also reduce common implicit biases that creep into job postings. Things like requiring a certain number of years of job experience, education requirements and other mandatory skills aren’t actually necessary when it comes to the day-to-day work employees will be doing, Kibben said.

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“Years of experience are inherently ageist,” they said. “They quantify time, but they don’t qualify talent. College education is privilege bias: all you’re requiring is that you had the privilege of education to work here.”

Having a laundry list of unnecessary job requirements is also a deterrent for entry-level employees, Kibben said. If you’re hoping to attract this group, they suggest trying a new tactic: offer to provide the training on the job within your posting.

“Imagine how it would feel when you were job hunting to read something like this: to thrive in this environment, you do not need experience,” they said. “We will teach you everything you need to know.”

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Kibben pointed out that employers are competing with millions of job openings: LinkedIn alone has 15 million postings available, according to their data. In order to stand out, get simple, get specific, and let employees make an easy choice.

“A good job posting allows someone to say, yes, I can do this, or no, I cannot,” they said. “Yes, I want to, or no, I don’t.”