4 Steps to Developing an Effective Job Marketing Profile

Marketing a job opportunity is similar to marketing a product or service.  Your marketing message may be as important as the features and benefits of the related product, service, or job opportunity. If you are posting compliance based job descriptions, your marketing strategy is immediately off track.  Job descriptions are boring, and no one wants a job that sounds boring.

Marketing a job opening is all about how you make the prospective candidate feel when he/she reads your job posting.  Can he envision himself doing the job?  Does she feel like she would enjoy working with the team? Here are 4 steps in developing an effective Job Marketing Profile (JMP).

1. Describe key responsibilities accurately. Is it a bookkeeper, engineer, sales consultant, developer, or an office manager?  Start by defining the role by identifying 3-5 key responsibilities of the role.
2. Create an appealing ad. Capture the attention of the type of candidates you are looking to hire.  Convey a message the makes a person feel that they can easily fit into your team.
3. Promote the ad and send your message.  Create a call to action that motivates a candidate to easily apply. This could be a phone call, email, website link, or simply an “apply now” button, but most important, be specific and add contact information in case candidates have questions.
4. Review the ad.  How does it look? Check for grammatical errors. Does the layout and format catch the eye?  Would you want to apply to this ad?

Use these 4 steps as a guide when starting your next search.  Once you have an effective Job Marketing Profile, you are now ready to push your message out to job boards and your personal network.