Meet the Powerful 2018 Job Posting Strategy for Your Hard-to-Fill Jobs
It used to be so easy. Before the internet, you just paid a ton of money to get your job in the Sunday newspaper. This one source dominated the job advertising space with very few competitors. Today, the “job posting” is where it all starts. It is the seed that, when planted in the right places, will yield a great crop of potential qualified hires. As an employer today, you have thousands of choices from numerous vendors on where, why, and how to make sure your job posting gets in front of its intended target audience. 2018 will also see job robots utilizing artificial intelligence to really get the party rocking!
No matter what sources you end up using, it all starts with a job posting. Of course, I will assume you have a great job title (VERY important) and an excellent job description. But to really power your hard-to-fill jobs, below are four things you should do:
- Post your hard-to-fill job on a robust niche job board.
General job board websites like Indeed and Career Builder are fine but you need more to find the BEST candidate. Why? Well-run niche sites in any sector that are dedicated to a specific industry have a way to attract your next hire from a pool of candidates that are not even looking for a new job. For example, GreatInsuranceJobs.com's competitive advantage over all other job board starts with how insurance candidates (passive and active) join the site. GIJ goes to every major insurance conference and meets thousands of insurance professionals face to face every year, helping them to create an account and sign up for job alerts. When you post your insurance job, these passive job seekers are alerted and it is powerful. GIJ also provides the industry with employment trend surveys yearly, conducts speaking engagements at schools and conferences as well as partner with many associations and trade publications like Business Insurance and TheCLM.org. A great niche site will not yield hundreds of candidates but will certainly provide some excellent talent. A great niche board will save you thousands of dollars in recruiting fees because over time it will fill many hard-to-fill positions that the general job boards can’t handle.
- Yes, social media works to power a job posting but only if you know what you are doing.
Unless you are a huge company with a tremendous following, just tweeting out your job is not a great strategy. What really works well on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is to sponsor a post but this takes planning. I assume you have a Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter account for your overall company (some companies have dedicated career social media accounts). If you post your hard-to-fill job as a normal post with a link to the job posting in it, this is a great start. It will end up on the news feed of many of your followers (who may be customers, stock holders, past and former employees). In 2018, take that same posting and sponsor it to a target audience. For example, if you are looking for a ER Nurse in Tampa, Florida, you can target nurses in Tampa on Facebook who don’t follow your company FB page. Your post lands on their news feed. You have to pay Facebook for this but you can control that spend. Do the same on LinkedIn and Twitter and all of a sudden your job posting is on top of the list! Lastly, if one person “shares” your link, you'll have even more eyes looking at your company.
- Branding is ALIVE.
For the hard-to-fill position, many employers miss out on an application simply because you finally get a passive candidate to click on your job posting but it turns out to be "just another job.” You have to sell these candidates on why they should interview with your company. This is done by making your company come alive. With many niche sites, you can “skin” your job posting and add video, graphics, podcasts and social media accounts so when the potential candidate opens the page, they are treated to a mini-website dedicated to getting that candidate to apply. Views are great but applications rule. While Indeed is a great resource, you can’t brand your job at all. In other words, every job and company looks exactly the same and for hard-to-fill positions with a passive job seeker, you will never get the application. (example)
- Artificial Intelligence is on the way to help!
If you plan on attending the SHRM Conference in Chicago next year, wander onto the expo floor and you will find hundreds of vendors selling you on AI and how it will “make your job easier” to find great talent. Don’t get to excited yet (unless you have some cash laying around and want to be an early adopter) but for the job posting, some great strides have been made in this area. For example, IBM Watson uses AI to predict how long it will take to fill your hard-to-fill positions and where recruiters should be spending their time. Right now, your open jobs may be worked on depending on which manager is yelling the loudest.
With the economy moving in the right direction, wages finally increasing, and a very low unemployment rate, you have to be ready to really power your job postings in 2018 to get great passive job seekers to change jobs. Follow these steps and you will be very successful!