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Conduct an online job search these days and you’re soon confronted with lots of ads, many suggesting, without actually saying it of course, that each day spent working with them will be just like dying and going to heaven, only better. But should they be taken at face value?  Is your workplace heaven? Or is it more like hell, despite what that ever so enticing advertisement that lured you there in the first place suggested? Here I take a lighthearted look at what job ads say and what they…

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I’ve had a few run ins, albeit friendly exchanges of banter, of late with a few pro social recruiting types. Obviously it’s difficult to explain ones self fully in 140 characters or less so I thought I would take a bit longer to explain my stance.

 

I make no bones about it – I like social media. I said as much over 2 years ago in a blog that picked up on Ricky Gervais’s flounce (he’s since come back as we all know). Indeed I have gained business I would never have otherwise…

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Not a single day passes by of late without hearing the dreaded words 'global talent pool', but what does that phrase actually mean in practice, if anything at all?

Consider a typical recruiting scenario. You're looking for a mid-career engineer for a specific location. There is no relocation package on offer so straight away it would be fair to assume that 99 times out of a hundred your likely candidate is going to come from a 30 or 40 mile radius of wherever the business is situated.…

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Microsoft. Apple. Google. Coca Cola. Virgin. The BBC. What do they have in common? Each of them could advertise on the back of a cigarette packet, put a card in a shop window or float a message in a bottle out to sea and they would still get a good response to their recruitment campaigns. Indeed all of them receive hundreds of unsolicited applications each and every year.

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Browsing Twitter recently I came across a pretty senior level role for a prominent UK organisation. Nothing unusual there. But, upon reading through the job advertisement it soon became apparent that no thought whatsoever had gone into its make-up. Indeed, this job post was over 200 lines long and consisted purely of dull cut and pasted content taken straight from a job description.

 

I decided to ask the advertiser why, as a leading light in their field, they saw fit to post…

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Honestly, if I had a penny for every time I have read about how the job boards are dying I'd have ooh, let me see now, at least one of the Queen's English pounds sterling. And you know what? they are not dying of old age, they are being poisoned into oblivion by the very people who are meant to make them work - the recruiter.



Yes siree, it doesn't take much figuring out. Social media isn't the holy grail these gurus would have you believe it is. You post the same crap as you've been… Continue

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For reasons best known to themselves, many recruiters bemoan the absence of a decent job description and person spec from a client. I agree it’s frustrating when what you get is a series of seemingly unrelated one liners in terms of a job description and just the basic facts about the skills and experience you need in order to do the role, but, the emphasis should be on you, the recruiter to eke out the information from your client that will sell the job, not… Continue

I've been meaning to put together my thoughts about writing recruitment advertisements, or job posts as many call them, for some time. After all, I have written thousands of them down the years and, as many know, I have a real bugbear about bad job ads littering the web. So here goes. My gift to you all for Christmas. Why not resolve to put it into practice in the new year?



Think first

Get your understanding of the brief right (I am assuming you take a… Continue

Ever find yourself stuck for words when writing your job copy? Following on from a script on my comedy writing page (http://alasdairdmurraycopywriter.co.uk/comedy.aspx) here are a few more phrases to help you entice your candidates. But beware, they all come with a hidden meaning. ( Just a bit of fun really, take with a pinch of salt )



you have good team building skills – there will be lots of dragging… Continue

I may bang on about it a lot, but that's because I am on a mission - A mission to try and up the quality of content on the plethora of job boards that are out there in cyberspace. Here's why.....



Job advertising is one of the most effective sourcing mechanisms available to you and your company – not only for candidates, but for prospective clients and future employees. Advertising is often the very first time people get to find out who your company are, what you do… and how good you… Continue

Let's face it, we've never before lived in an age where such a plethora of job opportunities are accessible to us at the mere touch of a button. But is this instantaneous solution really all it's cracked up to be? Is the constant search for new and supposedly better ways to reach the job seeker really an advance, or merely adding to the woes of the already stressed out candidate who, when faced with a huge list of all too often bland and uninspiring job posts, struggles to separate the wheat… Continue