The Importance of Having a Call to Action When Online Recruitment Advertising
Hints and tips
This week we’re discussing the importance of having a call to action in your online recruitment advertising, whether that is on your advert on job boards, on your career site or your social media platforms.
A call to action is an instruction you would like someone to complete with a specific goal at the end of it so in terms of recruitment advertising the most obvious call to action would be ‘apply now’ with the goal of receiving applications for your job role.
Below we have listed several other calls to action you could use in your recruitment advertising to help boost applicant response and engagement. Let’s take each one in turn:
To apply for this role please click apply where you will be directed to a brief online application will take no longer than 5 minutes to complete
The call to action here is ‘please click apply’ which may seem an obvious statement but not everyone applying is familiar with the job board process, and some people prefer to get in touch via telephone or direct email. By instructing them to apply online via the job board site they saw the job will ensure you get consistency in your process...and applicants who can follow instructions.
The second part of this sentence is also important – managing the applicant’s expectations in terms of length of application. Today’s job seekers don’t really like lengthy application processes, they much prefer a quick submit-a-CV approach. Any mention of ‘application form’ rings dread, it says hours of questions like ‘describe a time when...’ By stipulating the time the application will take will enable the applicants to set that time aside, if they don’t have time right now to do it they can save your job and complete it on the weekend perhaps, when they have that 30 minutes/hour to spare. This is much better than just having a large applicant drop off rate.
To apply for the role please email your CV and a covering letter explaining your suitability for the role to [email]
Directing applicants with the information you need in your recruitment advertising will help you, and the applicant, out leaps and bounds. From your point of view, you have a selection of applicants providing the information you need from the onset, rather than going back to half of them via telephone for the missing information. For the applicants, they have a clear idea of what you are looking for, in this call to action it is clear that you want to know how this applicant matches your criteria whether that be qualifications, experience or skill set.
Other calls to action here could be: please email your CV, salary expectations and portfolio to...
For more information on the role, please get in touch with [Hiring Manager] on [number]
This call to action is really handy because it involves a direct communication, only people who are really interested in your job role will pick up the phone rather than getting a bunch of applicants who are just distributing their CV willy-nilly.
You may find that job boards block your number because they don’t want applicants being taken away from their site, you’d effectively be stopping the job board process by cutting out the apply button action which job boards want. So when taking this approach it is best to put this number on your career site if you have one, or on your social media channels. You can do this on a job board advert by directing applicants to your website after they click apply (your job board Account Manager will explain this ‘external’ application in more detail).
Share this job (via various social channels)
When recruitment advertising online, it’s always best to put it not only on a job board but your website and social media channels too. This ties in your brand across channels and increases your applicant reach. But nothing increases the reach possibility more than the ability to ‘share’ on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. It’s actually become the norm for internet users to share content, think of viral pictures, videos and memes. By encouraging your followers to share your job advert will put you in front of more people and also in front of ‘passive’ job seekers who may not otherwise have seen or applied to your job
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Recruitment advertising doesn’t just have to be about a vacancy you are currently advertising, to build and retain a job seeker talent pool for your company put some resource into gaining a job seeker following, that way when you are hiring you have a loyal group of people who have a genuine interest in your company. The best way to do this is provide information that is relevant and useful for them, think about career advice you can provide for example.
Don’t forget to bookmark our career site – you never know when we’re hiring the perfect job for you
Just because you’re advertising for one role doesn’t mean you won’t have opportunities available in the future that might be of interest to job seekers. Encourage job seekers to be brand loyal by bookmarking your career page or, if you have the facility, to sign up to email alerts when their job search criteria is being advertised.
If you’re not recruiting right now but want to retain your engagement with applicants, you could have an FAQ page on your website or update your social media status’ with questions so that they can comment. It doesn’t have to be job-related, but industry or news related. Just to keep your presence and interaction with people who may potentially work for you one day – they won’t forget how personable your brand is and are highly likely to relay their positive experience with others.
Recruitment advertising isn’t just about getting applicants to apply for your role there and then, although this is the primary objective when you are hiring. At other times when you are not hiring, you can still utilise recruitment advertising in order to boost your brand profile and generate a talent pool of applicants for when you do hire. Something as little as explaining how long something will take could make the difference between an application or not. And a little encouragement to share and like on social media could massively boost your social standing.
We trust you found this article useful and that it has given you some food for thought in your recruitment advertising. Please share this article on social media below and don’t hesitate to connect with us for more handy recruitment hints and tips: Twitter @FFRecruitment Facebook Linkedin.
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