By Peter Weddle, Founder & CEO TAtech
The Great Stay has become the term du jour in TA and HR circles, and with good reason. In an era of low unemployment, the best source of new hires is the talent working for other employers, and that source has all but dried up.
This year, there’s been an 11.1 decrease from 2023 in voluntary employee quits, according to iHire’s 2024 Telent Retention Report. It’s a startling contrast to the peak of the Great Resignation in 2021, when 4 million workers were leaving their jobs EVERY MONTH.
Despite this new reality, however, there’s been no significant change in the way companies go to market for talent with online recruitment advertising. While there is always social media chatter about the need to change the candidate data we acquire (using the resume), virtually no one is talking about the need to change the way we acquire that data. Or, to put it another way, the time has come to ditch the job posting.
I’ve been a student of the job posting genre since my days as a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, way back at the dawn of the Internet. In almost every case, these ads fall into a bimodal distribution: some are puffed-up print classified copy repurposed online and the rest are bureaucratic position descriptions that only someone in HR could love.
Both will work in a Great Resignation, when recruiting is the equivalent of fishing in a barrel. Neither is effective when talent is hunkered down in a Great Stay. And yet, they continue to be used with little or no change, even as employers struggle to fill critical vacancies in healthcare, technology, manufacturing, transportation and other sectors of the economy.
As Einstein opined, it’s not rational to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. The current job posting model just flat doesn’t work in our new reality, so it’s time to do something different. We must jettison the job posting and move to the job deal.
The TAtech Leadership Summit on Recruitment Marketing is designed for HR/TA leaders and senior professionals at enterprise employers and their counterparts among TA solution providers. To be held at the newly renovated Le Méridien Tampa, The Courthouse, the conference opens with a welcome reception on the evening of February 26 and then runs all day February 27. The agenda is still in development, but the focus will be on showcasing the latest technology and most innovative practices for moving to full-funnel recruitment marketing. Seating is limited at the conference venue, so register today to make sure you have a spot.
The Job Deal
Let’s first be clear about what we’re doing. When we advertise for talent online, we’re not announcing a job, we’re selling it. And in the Great Stay, we’re selling it to reluctant buyers. So, we need to offer them a deal.
A traditional job posting is designed to tell prospective candidates what the employer wants them to know about an opening. Typically, it uses words only an employer could love: Requirements and Responsibilities.
A job deal in contrast provides both the inspiration and the information that will motivate passive readers to become active applicants. It’s a deal because if offers something they will interpret as beneficial for them.
That message is conveyed by both a job deal’s format and content. It acknowledges that the reader has the attention span of a gnat and a singular focus: they want to know right up front what’s in it for them.
The first section of the ad: What’s in it for them
According to research conducted at the University of California-Irvine, people now spend an average of just 47 seconds on a page of digital content, so the job deal leads with a short, hard-hitting hook that will cause the reader to pause and stay longer.
What’s in that hook?
Inspiration. A mashup of a company’s employment brand and the key motivating factors for a job’s target demographic. They can be identified by research, of course, or by simply asking new hires for similar positions what it was that caused them to say “yes” to the offer. The top three factors should then appear at the very top of the ad, presented either in bullets (so the eye can quickly scan and still absorb the content) or a video of no more than 30 seconds.
The second section of the ad: what makes it the deal they must not overlook
In today’s talent market, selling a job begins with table stakes: pay transparency and a clear statement about where the job can be performed (i.e., remote, hybrid or in the office). After that, the content of a job deal focuses on making it an irresistible opportunity.
It avoids terms like Requirements and Responsibilities, and instead answers the questions prospective candidates have so they can compare the opportunity to their current employment:
• What they will get to do – what’s special or important about the work;
• What they will get to learn – what kinds of growth opportunities will they have;
• What they will get to accomplish – how will they be positioned to excel at their work;
• With whom they will get to work – who will be their peers and what are their capabilities; and
• How they will be recognized and rewarded – what accolades will they earn by excelling at this job.
The Great Stay isn’t just a hiccup in the talent market, but rather the dynamic behind an entirely new kind of recruiting environment. To be effective, therefore, recruiters have to change how they go to market, especially in the way they communicate the value proposition of their employment opportunities. The job deal enables them to do exactly that.
Food for Thought,
Peter
P.S. If you’d like more information on job posting best practices and how best to implement talent technology in general, consider the TAtech Talent Technology Implementation Management Handbook & Job Aid.
Peter Weddle has authored or edited over two dozen books and been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He is the founder and CEO of TAtech: The Association for Talent Acquisition Solutions.