Saying A Lot With A Little: Powerful Classified Ads
So work has sucked you dry and you’ve been looking for a new job. You’ve scoured online job ads and filtered out the ones that are too vague to apply to, but all the jobs that are out there say a lot with a little words. So what does it mean when things like this pop up in your inbox:
- Looking for people who can face challenges, work well in small teams, and want to grow with the company? We love those!
- Wanting to live closer to family? We need someone who has military experience.
- Looking for a position where you can use your math and computer skills? We don’t mind if you need to work overtime.
- Needed: A web developer who can work from home.
All these ads are pretty much saying the same thing: We have a lot of money and don’t have time to interview you. So the only way that we can tell if you will be good at this job is if we give you something that tells us that you are good at it. The problem with this kind of job advertising is that it gives those who are looking for a job one thing they should want—more money without actually having to do the work. It’s like being an employer without actually having to interview people. If you run a website, you know how hard it is to find good employees. If a potential employee can do the job, they should have to prove it during an interview. So why aren’t employers saying more with their job ads?
The internet has made it possible for people to look at their options, and even though you may have decided that you want to work at one business or organization over another, having options is important. Having options allows you to pick what’s best for your livelihood instead of picking what is offered because it has been offered before other opportunities are swallowed up and left nothing behind but bones. When job ads say a lot with a little, it brings to mind the idea that when real jobs are posted, they are few and far between, which didn’t really start happening until the past few years.
This whole “saying a lot with a little” has turned out to be false advertising. And this kind of false advertising is not only cost effective for employers and seriously annoying for job seekers; it also turns people into zombies. I don’t know about you, but there have been times when I’ve read through job listings and have thought about how easy it would be to work at any of them. I mean, I run my own websites and they would probably hire me, right? Like most people, I went to college and got some training so I know how to do all this stuff. But as I read these little blurbs on job ads that say a lot with a little, I started thinking about how much debt I have because of all the crap that comes with higher education in America. And how much it would cost me just to get out from under some of the debt I have. So yeah, maybe those jobs would be really easy to get after all if you have the money for training or if you’ve already been through it.
So let’s make things a little easier for employers and job seekers. How can we make this work?
1. Make the jobs in your company and the position you want clear. Hiring managers need to know if they are hiring people for entry level or senior level positions. Don’t just say “experience needed” as a part of your job ad; tell them what kind of experience is needed. If you are hiring for a web developer, tell them what kind of languages you want them to be able to work with and the software that you use that needs to be utilized. If you are hiring someone to be a recruiter, tell them what the ideal candidate will look like.
2. Make it clear which jobs have time requirements that are different than others. For example, if you can work from home there is no need for you to specify that in your job ad. If you can’t work from home then say so in your job ad. Also make sure to tell them what kind of physical demands are made on your employees as much as anything else about the kind of position they are looking for.
3. Remove micro-managing from the hiring process and let the person who knows how to do the job do their job until they prove themselves wrong or right in this role. Interviewing means doing things that a person needs to do in order to qualify as qualified and get hired. Most people think that hiring is just some kind of lottery and that anyone can win. It doesn’t work like that, though. Even if all of the right qualifications are listed in your job ad, you will still have to give them a chance to prove themselves. So if they don’t seem to fit the qualifications listed, they need more time to prove themselves instead of going through a series of interviews until someone feels like they might be really good at it.
4. Show off your employees by telling them how great they are at what they do. Hiring managers need to know if you have good people that are happy because of the way things are set up in your company or if they are being micro-managed. If you have somebody who is satisfied because they can be flexible and take less money to get a job done, then let them know that this is what makes them a top performer.
5. If you can’t compete with another company who has a more appealing ad, make sure to counter-offer instead of lowering your standards like most people do. Do you know how hard it is to get people to see your company as a better option? Of course you do because you’re reading this right now. And chances are that when you are competing with other companies, that they are not going to be lowering their standards in order to stay competitive with your company. So tell them what they need to know in your ad: That even though they are offering the same amount of money and benefits, most days they will work 12 hours instead of 8 hours. This can’t hurt anybody. Plus it shows that there is enough demand for those jobs so you have the right to have more money and fewer requirements than others who are competing for the same job.
6. If you want to be “creative” with your job ads and make them stand out, just don’t be “creative”. If you are going to do something, be sure to at least come up with a better way of doing it. For example, “Creative Marketing Manager needed ($1,000/month stipend). Let me know how much it would take to convince you that this is worth the money.” Or something tells me that that opportunity won’t do too well in the job market.
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Conclusion:
There has to be a better way of getting people who are qualified and interested in the job that you are offering to you. If people can’t find the job that they are looking for on your first page of results, then maybe you need to change something. Because if it’s hard for them to find your company, it’s going to be even harder for them to get a job with your company. And if there isn’t enough money being offered, then maybe you need to take a look at what other businesses are offering and try and counter-offer something more appealing instead of lowering your standards and making it even harder for people to work for you.