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Career Guides Career Corporate Human Resources Training & Development Knowledge Managment Time Management Stress Management Sponsors Ezboard IS Community-Supported Communities. Support us and your communities. In order for communities to thrive and grow, they need the support of their members. and we rely on both the support of our users and the support of advertisers to provide these invaluable services to you. Please help keep this site banner free by clicking here. Affiliates A Premier Provider of Management Consultant & Training Solutions. A Pocket PC Unified Body of Individuals in Singapore.		Creating Outrageous Advertisements The recruiter's universal ambition -- in-house or agency -- is to minimize the cost-per-hire. When it comes to recruitment advertising, that translates to getting the most responses per ad. "That?s the sweet spot," says Lou Adler, author of Hire with Your Head and president and founder of POWERHiring.com. Adler's simple advice to getting more bang from your advertising buck: "Write an outrageous ad." "Boring ads attract boring people, and on the Internet you?ll just attract greater numbers of them," he says. It doesn't take much effort to transform an ad from ho-hum to wow, Adler claims. He cites the example of an ad he recently placed on Monster.com that ran under the title Web Producer. The ad generated 14 responses in three days, and none of the applicants was qualified. But when Adler made one slight change, adding the word extraordinary to the title, he received over one hundred responses in a day -- one leading to a hire --although the ad copy was otherwise exactly the same. Adler has developed proven techniques that he calls the Five Secrets to Writing Outrageous Ads. These tips are designed not only to improve response rates, but also to attract higher-quality applicants. The Doing Focus your ad copy on what a person needs to do. This is the heart of the job -- what you expect the person to accomplish. Make this exciting and it will prompt active and qualified candidates to apply. People who don?t want to do the work will exclude themselves. If you want to motivate people to excellence, devote at least 50% of the ad to the doing. Generously add lines like this to your ads: Get set to rebuild an electro-mechanical consumer product line with lots of potential, but little direction. Another example: Take over a customer service department of ten people that needs an energizing force and a new direction. The Becoming Paint a clear picture of how a potential candidate can grow and develop over the first year. Give him something to reach for. Feature this vision in the ad, and you'll attract some of the best people. People stay in jobs when they can see a compelling future, and will often take less of a salary increase. The career opportunity more than compensates for an additional 10% salary increase. The becoming needs to be mentioned subtly in line with some pizzazz about the company. For example: Become an e-commerce guru as you lead the launch of our state-of-the-art Internet application. Here's another: Enhance your UNIX systems administrator skills as you take on one of the biggest IT challenges to come to Austin. The Having Don't pack your ads with lists of requirements, skills, academics or duties. These are a big turn-off and exclude the best from even applying. Not surprisingly, unqualified people, who often only read the title, apply in great numbers. Experience is a poor predictor of on-the-job success, so minimize this in your ads to no more than one general sentence. Try something like this: Send in your resume if you have a few years in our industry, solid academics and a track record of building awesome teams. Keep this part simple and vague. Outrageous Titles Use interesting and exciting titles for your positions. Be a little creative. Instead of UNIX administrator, try UNIX guru. Instead of sales manager, use sales general or decorated road warrior. An inside sales person could instead be called a tele-sales wizard. This approach stimulates candidates to read the ad and learn more. Qualify Candidates up Front At the end of your ad, ask the candidate to submit a one-page write-up of their most significant comparable accomplishment. This is a more meaningful way to filter candidates (or, add this request to an email autoresponse). The quality of the accomplishment is more predictive of success than all the degrees and experiences in the world. Adler offered some before and after examples of souped up ads that work. - Before: Division Accountant: Ajax Parts is seeking an accountant responsible for all general ledger activity and internal financial reporting. We are a mid-sized industrial parts manufacturing company. Candidates must be able to manage a small staff, and have a BS in business, preferably in accounting, with a CPA highly desired. We offer a competitive financial package. - After: Division Non-Accountant: Ajax Parts is on the move. Join us and give your career a jump start! Our new division accountant will be setting up a complete new performance reporting package, pushing the envelope on using the latest systems. A CPA would be great, but not as important as a track record of building top-notch teams with a desire to succeed. A progressive comp package will grow as you do. Note how the second version focuses on the benefits to the candidate, and throws down a challenge," says Adler. "Who can resist?" - Before: Sr. UNIX Administrator: We need a Senior UNIX system administrator with five to ten years experience administering medium-to-large environments on multi-platforms (SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX and AIX). Must have expert networking knowledge of DNS, NFS, NIS (+), Automounter and TCP/IP. Strong shell scripting development skills (C, C++, Perl, AWK, Bourne, Korn) a plus. Position requires expertise in database administration (Oracle, Sybase, SQL, etc.). Willingness to travel 50% up to 75% with possible international travel is required. - After: Sr. UNIX Administrator: Mega-opportunity with mega-visibility. Get on the fast track and leverage your big-time UNIX background with Sun, Solaris and HP. You'll be traveling across the globe, leading the effort to set up complex international networks. This is a high-visibility position that will touch every facet of our business and the unique Oracle and Sybase databases that drive them. Two years in this role and you'll be positioned to handle any challenge. This is an extraordinary opportunity coupled with an outstanding comp plan! In this ad, "the travel aspect is transformed from an obligation into an extraordinary opportunity. It also hinges on the valuable prospects for professional development," Adler says. He advises that if an online ad doesn?t seem to be working, "you should tweak it every couple of days until it?s working as hard as it can for you." Marc Morris, vice president and principal of StaffPRO Technologies in Atlanta, is a recent convert to the outrageous ad strategy. "In the past three months, we?ve radically changed our style from very generic, clinical ads with lists of skills and qualifications, to more beefed-up rhetoric. During this time we've had the best three months in the history of our business." Morris's recent search on Monster.com for a Microsoft certified systems developer illustrates how effective the new method has been. In the past, "we would have written up a laundry list of the job's requirements and the skills and experience sought." But this time, he added the word extraordinary to the title, and directly addressed the reader in the copy by essentially asking, are you good enough? He also added a touch of humor, and hot-button words like creative, talented and cutting-edge. We started running the ad three weeks ago, and had an offer accepted last night," said Morris. "We found that this ad really attracted a higher quality of applicant. People would call and joke that they were the extraordinary MCSD we were looking for." He added that the breezy style seemed to put applicants at ease. "The sort of verbiage we used really sets a relaxed tone, which opens the door to a great relationship with the candidate." The MCSD ad was aimed at, and attracted, young techies who were interested in a fun, free-wheeling workplace. However, ads can also set a more serious tone if you?re trying to place someone into a more white-collar environment, Morris noted. "You can approach it from a be all you can be or earn your frequent flier miles perspective." Back >		Updates HR Professionals Guide Training & Development Guide Manager's Trouble Shooting Guide Series Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Selling Series HR Management Practises Series Featured Communities BIK & Associated A Premier Training & Management Provider in Training & Development Workshops. PPCSG.Org A Web Forum for the Techno Gadgets Trend Followers. Lots of Informative and Guides for your Pocket PC.
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