Elements of the best job ad examples

First impressions matter, so your job ad should be able to catch the attention of people in your target audience and elicit their interest. The best job ad examples:

• Identify the open position and required qualifications without trying to obfuscate details about the job. Partial or misleading information can harm your company’s reputation.
• Provide a taste of the company. Candidates often use the job ad to gauge your company’s culture and work approach. If the demands in the ad seem unrealistic, or the language used intentionally or unintentionally discriminates against marginalized groups, you’re unlikely to receive applications from suitable candidates.
• Feature a straightforward application procedure. The job ad allows you to outline part of your recruitment process. Provide the name and details of the recruiting manager on the ad and state the application requirements, including the documents needed to kickstart the process.

Related: Job Posting Guide: How to Prep and Post Your Job

Six best job postings examples

Startups

Finding candidates for a new company can be difficult, especially if the organization has little to no reviews from past employees.

You can successfully recruit for a startup by:

1. Capitalizing on its story to establish candidate trust: A startup may not have a strong enough web presence for candidates to learn about its history and successes. Use the job ad to tell the story of how you started the business, how long it’s been operating, and who is involved in helping the company grow. Outline your vision for the company’s future and your commitments to the workplace and any future employees in the job listing.
2. Being upfront about job requirements. Due to a limited workforce, startup employees often have to take up tasks beyond their job descriptions. Don’t try to sugarcoat the job by promising unrealistic work conditions. Anyone who has worked in a startup before may avoid your job ad if they notice that some details have been exaggerated. And while the ad may appeal to candidates excited to enter the job market, their zeal won’t last long once they start to do the actual work, which may lead to high employee turnover .
3. Be inventive with benefits and rewards:the average startup can’t promise hefty compensation, but you can try to make up for the deficit in other ways. Use the job ads to show candidates that performance may be rewarded through bonuses and even investment opportunities as the company grows.

Recruiting on a budget

The Society for Human Resource Management places the average cost for recruiting a single candidate at over $4,500. If your company can’t dedicate a similar amount for recruitment:

1. Utilize free job boards: there are a lot of free avenues for you to reach a vast candidate pool without paying any fees upfront. Indeed, which works as a matching and hiring platform , allows you to place a job ad for free and take advantage of its international reach to recruit your next employee. Optimizing your ads for social media sharing can also help you reach a wider candidate base for free.
2. Narrow the candidate pool: whether you’re managing recruitment by yourself or have a small team working on it, reducing the applications you receive will save you a lot of resources. Companies that are recruiting on a budget use precise language in their listings to ensure that most of the applicants meet the job requirements and qualifications.

Difficult positions

To achieve success through your ads for difficult job positions:

1. Cast a wide net: increasing the areas from which you source candidates may improve your chances of hiring the right people for the job. When creating the job ad, use language that doesn’t restrict your labor pool to one industry or leave out people who don’t have particular educational qualifications.
2. Emphasize training opportunities: you may receive more applications if your ad shows that you will offer training opportunities during and after onboarding . These may appeal to job seekers who’ll use them to learn and develop different competencies.
3. Lay your cards on the table: it’s good practice to communicate the challenges accepted candidates can expect through your ad. You should also take the opportunity to show how your company supports them through these challenges. Above-average pay, paid time off and various insurance schemes may make recruiting for such positions easier.

Highly-Specialized Jobs

Sometimes a job position opens up that requires you to source from a labor market with very high demand and meager supply. Successful job postings examples for such vacancies:

1. Use industry-specific language: your ad’s target audience should be individuals who understand the ins and outs of the job position. Don’t simplify the job description to cater to non-specialists. Instead, use language that people with relevant skills can understand to make the recruitment process within a competitive field easier.
2. Be transparent about pay:candidates with sought-after skills should be able to tell at a glance how much your company values their competencies. Your job ad isn’t the place to play coy about your organization’s compensation policies. In short, don’t make the candidates have to do research to know how much their skills are worth to you.
3. Highlight job benefits and perks: in-demand candidates need to know why they should pick your company over its competitors. You can make the job position hard to resist by showing your company’s benefits and perks to successful candidates. If you want to catch the attention of job seekers, put one of the significant job perks in the first line of the job ad so it’s hard to miss.

Attracting top talent

When creating a job ad to attract top talent to your company:

1. Clarify your expectations: a high-quality candidate needs to know what your company expects from them. Use the ad to detail the job’s duties and daily work tasks. You can also explain how the organization will support them as they achieve the company’s objectives and personal career goals.
2. Leverage company culture : one sure way of getting the interest of high-quality individuals is by assuring them of a business environment that welcomes exploration and innovation. Your job ad should tell a story of how your organization challenges its employees and how it rewards those who break the mold.
3. Offer executive benefits: industry-specific employee benefits may not be enough for in-demand talent. The job ad can be the ideal place to show candidates the unique perks your company will offer. Some organizations use relocation assistance programs, a company house and car, children’s education and a healthy stock portfolio to attract and retain top talent. People at the top of their careers value the ability to come and go as needed, so avoid using restrictive terms like ‘full-time’ in your ad.

For Diversifying Your Workforce

A diverse workforce can be the key to a successful and highly competitive company. When creating job ads for building a diverse workforce:

1. Use language carefully: a job ad shouldn’t have language that makes people from diverse demographics afraid to apply. Use words that don’t have a racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, sexual or gender bias to assure applicants that their applications will be considered regardless of their identities. Pass the listing through diversity experts before you post it.
2. Showcase a commitment to diversity: Applicants can gauge your company’s readiness for a diverse workforce through the accessibility of your job listing. The job ad should be easy to translate and understand in multiple languages. It should also be accessible to individuals with disabilities, e.g., those who use reading aids.
3. Eliminate barriers to entry: Research some of the common barriers people in your target demographic experience and explain how you plan to work around or eliminate them. For example, if your company wants to provide a second chance to the formerly incarcerated, make it clear in the ad that any past involvement with the justice system won’t stop them from being considered for the job.