Is it just me, or have you also noticed the dramatic increase in the number of jobs being posted? It’s as if the floodgates have been opened. If it’s overwhelming to people like me, you can bet those you are trying to attract are feeling the same way. Here are some facts that you may not know about today’s job seeker.
Job Seekers Today are Fairly Lazy. Now before you go sending me hate mail, here’s what I mean. In the old days (three or four years ago), job seekers would be actively pursing their next opportunity. Today (thanks to the Internet) job seekers are sitting back waiting for their morning mail to come in, telling them about new openings.
If you truly want to reach these people, then you need to pull them into your organization and make them take notice. Start with your website. Upon first look, does a job seeker say, “Hey, I could see myself working here!” Or are they clicking right on by without a second look? If you don’t know the answer to this, then simply ask those you are trying to attract for their honest opinion. For example, suppose you are looking for entry-level personnel and you happen to have children or neighbors who might fit the bill. Ask them to take a look at your website as if they were seeking a new opportunity. How long did it take them to find your career page? Were they able to easily submit their resume? Be prepared to make some changes based on the feedback you receive.
Job seekers value specificity. If you try to attract everyone, no one will apply. Sometimes companies post very generic job postings thinking that this will attract a larger pool of candidates when in fact the opposite often happens. Few, if any apply. Stating that you are looking for a candidate with five to 15 years of experience indicates that you most likely don’t have a clue what you are seeking. There may be of course times when you have both a junior level and a senior level position open. In these situations, it’s best to say this in your posting so that job seekers understand you have more than one position available.
Time is a precious commodity to most job seekers. You may think that job seekers have nothing better to do than go online and research exactly where your offices are located or what your company does. And perhaps for some job seekers this is true. However, many of the people you are trying to attract to your firm are currently employed. They are checking job postings in between putting the final touches on a report and eating a sandwich at their desk. Many are time starved and will pass on opportunities that fail to indicate where the position is located or what the company does. Entice job seekers by doing whatever you can to make it easy for them to move to the next step.
As jobs continue to pour in, companies interested in hiring the best will need to do a better job of forecasting what needs to be done in order to make sure the grass looks greener on their side of the lawn.
