How can I write an attractive vacancy?

An attractive and good job description can be a great asset during the search for your next big talent. Writing a good job description can help you avoid a dozen phone calls with the same questions and make sure only relevant candidates apply. So, want to save time during your recruitment process? Keep on reading to find out how to write a compelling vacancy!

1. Lay-Out & Vocabulary

Let’s start with the overall look and feel of the vacancy. It’s important to write your job description as clear and to the point as possible, with a call to action at the end. Most job seekers are scrolling through quite a few vacancies a day, so try to stand out by using a visual or color coding. Most likely, they are looking for specific keywords as well. Make sure they find them by using bullet points instead of big blocks of text.

You can also use SEO to increase your reach. You can use a software tool to do this or you can try doing it yourself by just thinking of words you would use yourself while searching for that specific job. For example, would you search for the term ‘recruiter’ or ‘hiring officer’. Using the right words can make your vacancy pop up on top of the results, so take a second to think about them!

2. Company Overview

A vacancy is also the ideal opportunity to advertise your company and its benefits. After all, you want to ‘sell’ your company to potential candidates, so they apply for a job with you. Therefore, don’t forget to include a section devoted to your company culture and your main activities.

This will also ensure a fit between the company and the applicants, because why would someone apply for a position at a company with opposing values? You can also add topics like learning opportunities, your corporate social responsibility actions, your community events, wellbeing programs and so on. Again, try thinking of what you yourself would want to know about a company before applying for a position.

3. Main Tasks & Requirements

While writing the section on the main task and requirements, you should be as complete as possible. It is best to write these 2 sections in bullet points too, this reads a lot smoother. Tell the candidates exactly what would be expected of them and what background they should bring to the table.

When everything is clearly communicated from the start, you increase your chances of attracting the right candidates and decrease your chances of dropouts during the hiring process. In turn, this will again save you a lot of time and effort. It can also be nice for candidates to already know in what team they would end up and why there is a job opening there. Don’t be afraid to list soft skills and personality traits as well.

This will help you find a good fit with your company culture. At Generations Recruitment, we created the G.R.A.M. questionnaire to help us with this and match candidates to companies based on their aspirations.

4. Diversity and inclusion

Don’t forget to think about diverisy and inclusion. This is important to doublecheck your vacancy in order to includes all applicants and make sure it not prevent some of them from applying.  

Increasing diversity has proven to add value to a company, through increased productivity, improved creativity, increased profits, improved employee engagement, reduced employee turnover, improved company reputation, wider range of skills, and improved cultural insights…

However, without doing it on propose, we sometimes wrote language coded adverts that can prevent some people from applying. As an exemple, we might not use inclusive writing or we use masculine or feminine-coded words… There are online Gender decoder that you can use to find the potential bias in your advert and amend it accordingly. 

5. Practical Information

Last but not least, insert a section with all the practical information the candidates should know. Think about the different steps in your hiring process, the compensation benefits, the location, a contact person and so on.