Back from a nice week in Devon, doing nothing except walk on the moors and lazing about. Couple of calls to the office SAnything good happening? SWell, it's good you aren't here and that's about it. Didn't even bother to
travel 30
miles to take up the offer of a free lunch at Cornwall's most famous seafood restaurant though, as this wa.compensation for a lunch I had there last year that pole axed me for three days with food poisoning, my non-attendance wasn't 100% sloth related. Arrived to find an article - SHow to Write a Job Ad left open on my desk (rather pointedly, I thought) which was vaguely thought provoking, though things like Smost are full of corporate puff and management-speakfail to give detailed informationgenerally don't get the people you want were a bit too sweeping for me (and I hate all sweeping statements).
Copy can be quite emotive, not least because it's the one area of advertising that anyone can do we don't all know the media, we can't all design, but we can all write so we all bring our own opinions/pet hates to it. For example, there's lots of things I don't like, from Sprevious experience (isn't all experience in the past or previous?), Sstaff as opposed to Semployees (I use a staff to round up sheep. Well, I would if I had sheep. And if I had a staff), Smeticulous attention to detail (you either have attention to detail or you don't). None of these are likely to alter the response to an ad (which probably should be the test of whether any copy change is necessary in an ideal world) but I will still try and amend any of these, every chance I get, so the ad is done Smy way. To be honest, I can get a bit precious about my personal copy conventions (aka She's off on one again), so much so that we actually have a little list of them that we refer to hey, at least it ensures consistency. Though I like to think some of them achieve more than that isn't Sattractive salary a better sell than the rather dull Scompetitive, isn't Syou rather more personal than Sthe successful candidate, isn't Swe thank all candidates in advance for their interest and would appreciate all replies by xxx warmer than Sclosing date xxx?
Anyway, back to the article where, after the ritual slaughter of almost the entire industry's copy (Sbanal was another description used), the authors laid out their modestly titled SSeven Golden Rules, based on psychological research, to get to the people you want Swho are so busy being successful in their current job that they don't have the time or inclination to read the recruitment section. Ignoring the fatal flaw in this argument (if these successful people are too busy to read the recruitment section you could write an ad that could outsell the entire SHarry Potter phenomenon and it still wouldn't work, would it?), their rules were:
1. Be bold about job title, salary and location
2. Spell out what you want
3. Describe the job in detail
4. Use questions
5. Tell a story about why you are advertising the job but keep it real
6. Make applying easy
7. Fly your flag - put your logo in the ad.
On the face of it nothing much new there, although it was a shame that their own example of good copy for a sales position Syou'll be called in to clients when the door of
Opportunity has been opened, to provide the technical detail to close the deal seemed to include the type of management-type speak they abhor and was too wordy - the one thing all clients dislike because, for example, Syou'll use your technical knowledge to turn qualified leads into sales says pretty much the same. In over 50% less words.
The idea of using questions (
4) and telling stories, while keeping it real (
5) are well known advertising techniques which, research shows, do boost response (questions involve the reader and make the process two way, while people do read stories). But I can't think of many examples where questions can be, or are. Hmmm. I can't recall the world's number one brand Coca Cola advertising much about the effects of all that sugar on your teeth (If any, of course Legal Editor). I'm all for truth (or tooth. Ho! Ho!) in advertising but, in recruitment, think this should be limited to facts which I'd have as a Golden Rule and a description of the challenges or opportunities. Talking about your problems because chances are, you want people who can handle problems. And good people want a job they can get their teeth (what's this new dental fixation?) into, not one where the problems are all solved isn't particularly logical or realistic, I'd be interested to see if the authors could sell this warts 'n all approach to any client, anywhere.
From my point of view, a recruitment ad is a little bit like riding down a few floors in an a elevator with your candidate you only have a few seconds to make a favourable impression - so tone (friendly, personable), facts (turnover details, number of employees rather than one of the largest) and having a real selling point for the job are far more important than whittering on about the issues you face, asking questions and telling stories. I'm not that keen on their rule about describing the job in great detail either - a Marketing Manager knows what a Marketing Manager does most of the time without having every single detail spelled out as if for the hard-of-thinking.
Basically I'm still a big fan of the Price Waterhouse 1990's research into recruitment advertising, just about the only objective work of this kind of which I'm aware. This found that candidates want straightforward adverts, giving facts, cutting out excessive jargon and glossy adjectives. That candidates get irritated by the over-use of words like dynamic, pro-active, forward thinking, visionary etc. That they get tired of motherhood statements that tell us nothing. That many simply find the text of advertisements hard to believe. And that popular stocking fillers like growing, challenges, exciting opportunities are not the winners any cursory glance at any recruitment section would have you believe. Quite the opposite.
They're in fact seen as evidence of mass corporate delusion. Whoops.
by Kim Jones MD of:
giraffeads.com Website Desig.company London UK
