by Carl Kutsmode

Writing job postings for the Internet is different than writing your typical ad for a print publication and therefore should be treated differently.

With an Internet posting you are not being charged by the line. This gives you a lot more room to discuss the position, the company and the working environment. While most sites have some limit on the amount of content of job ads, there is sufficient space to outline enough information for the candidate to understand the position and the company. One well-written ad I checked on Monster was about 400 words. By the time I was finished reading the ad I knew exactly what technical skills I needed, soft skills I needed, company benefits, the working environment and a general view of what the company was all about. It was thorough and to the point. It had lots of valuable information without being too wordy.

The Monster system allows you practically limitless space in which you can write your job ads. In a test, the system accepted a job description of over 1600 words. Although this will probably be too many words for any job description, the point is that there is plenty of room for you to provide clear, concise and detailed information on the job. Use this to your advantage.

The job seeker benefits from a well-written ad because they now have the information they need to judge if this is a position they should submit their CV for.  You benefit because the detail you provide in your ad will help you to receive only CVs from self selected, higher potential candidates.

The Job Title is Critical

Spending the time up front to write descriptive, thorough and creative job titles will lead to a better result in the end.

The actual content of your job posting becomes meaningless if no candidate clicks through your hyperlink to read your ad. The job title that is entered for each job is of critical importance to the success of your Internet recruiting campaign. Monster allows you approximately 40 characters for the Job Title. Use all 40 characters to describe your position. For example, I pretended I was a job seeker and conducted a search for jobs posted over the last 30 days for a position requiring “C++” and “Unix” skills within a specific geographic area. Over 100 positions came back.

I furthered my search to add in “databases” and 40 jobs resulted. As a job seeker I now have to determine which of these 40 positions I want to click into. Positions with the most interesting, targeted titles will be looked at the most. The job titles from which I had to choose ranged from simple descriptions such as "Programmer/Analyst", "Software Developer", "Product Specialist" and "Sr. Programmer" to detailed descriptions such as "Sr. Java Object Oriented App. Engineer", "S/W Developers C, C++, Java, PB", "Embedded Systems Dev., C++, C, Unix, Oracle" and "Sr. Oracle Web Solutions Developers". As a job seeker I would be inclined to click through the more detailed titles. If you have the room, use it. Say something about the opportunity. For example, Java, c++, oracle, web, hot technology. This is 39 characters long and gives the impression that this company is cutting edge.

Organise your Content

When writing ads for the Internet, organise your content in an easy to read, concise format. Organise it the way a job seeker would want to see it.

First Paragraph
Job Description: Discuss the content of the actual job. Candidates first and foremost want to know what they will be doing on the job. Include the following:

Type of work they will be doing: What is the scope of the work? For instance, in a networking environment there is a huge difference between a company with 150 users at one site and 7,000 users across the country. Will they be planning and developing something new or improving on something already in existence? What is their "end product" and who will be the recipient of it - outside customers and clients, the general consumer, internal clients? Will they be managing a team of people? If so, what does that entail?

Second Paragraph
Required skills: Outline skills required and necessary certifications. Be sure to outline the differences between the actual required skills and the "nice to have" skills. For technical positions indicate what software they need to know, hardware, testing tools, environments that they've had to work in, etc. For other professional positions, indicate the same types of things as they apply. For example, in an accounting environment, is audit experience necessary? Cost accounting or financial accounting analysis required? Be specific with required skills.

Third Paragraph
Other qualifications: Here is where you can add in soft skills like communication skills, ability to work in a team environment, ability to interact with outside clients and customers, organisation skills, willingness to travel, flexibility, etc.

Fourth Paragraph
Educational Requirements: If there is something specific required, spell it out here- PhD, MBA, Masters in Engineering, BA in Journalism, etc.

Fifth Paragraph
Work environment: What is the company/department like? Is it casual, team centered, highly competitive, independent, offers good benefits?

Closing
Include an e-mail address, fax number and snail mail address (if you still use one) to send in a CV. Include your Web page address so they can learn more about the company

Creating Content

Many companies rely on "formal" job descriptions to create their job ads. This is insufficient. Often these job descriptions fall under categories of jobs. For example, a company may have one job description for a computer engineer; this would cover software and hardware engineering. This may be too generic for you to write a sufficient job ad. Within each department, positions are different. Talk to the hiring managers to find out what specifically the job entails. The more detail you have to post about the position, the better fit the candidates will be that respond. Spending the time up front to gather the appropriate detail will reduce cycle time and ultimately the cost per hire.

One way to manage this process is to sit down with managers from each department on a quarterly basis to assess their upcoming needs. At this meeting you can define the skill sets needed for each position.

Managing the posting process

Create a document file for your job ads. Once you've created a job ad for the Internet, save it in a document file. When you need to repost your positions or post to new sites you can simply copy from that file. Each site you post to has its own format. Having a document file allows you to copy and paste individual sections as needed by each site.

Create a spreadsheet to track postings. Managing postings, sites, expiration dates etc., can be an organisational nightmare for which you can easily lose control. Some postings expire in 60 days, some in 30 days and some stay up indefinitely. Regardless of the expiration date, you want to keep your positions fresh on the Internet and repost them every few weeks (if the site/your contract allows.) To help manage the process, create a spreadsheet. Down the left column list your jobs/ requisitions. Across the top list all of the sites to which you post. Under each site create the subheadings: Date initially posted, Date expires, Date to update/repost. You now can use this spreadsheet to stay updated on all of your postings so that you don't miss a critical date. You can also track metrics on jobs posted and to which sites.