Working with the psyche of man is fascinating, challenging and highly rewarding, especially when one achieves a significant ratio of ‘passive readers’ to ‘job seekers’.
Recruitment advertising should be considered as an expensive ‘art’ and not merely a process. Avoid superfluous copy and use an approach that appeals to the psyche of man. Take a wrong step and it can have costly consequences.
With conventional recruitment advertising in the management, executive and top-end academic sector, only about 10% of ‘job-seekers’ hit the mark – i.e. they have the right combination of technical ability, intellect (IQ), practical business sense (EQ), the right leadership traits, along with that subtle blend of pragmatism, passion and compassion. Given that a well-written conventional advertisement in this sector usually attracts around 60 or so responses, true-quality candidates usually number around 6 people. Trends dictate that approximately one-third of these ‘desired candidates’ will be on salary packages considerably higher than that on offer. That leaves 4. Location, domestic considerations, ‘buy-backs’ and the results of background checking, causes further attrition. Free choice’ is then down to only one or two candidates and often an appointment is made more for convenience, than true desire.
Grasp the attention of a passive reader, the person benchmarking themselves with industry norms & trends, entice them through meaningful and accurate profiling of the employer organisation, align their qualifications, skills and experience to the needs of the organisation and finally, get the reader to immediately respond through using well-considered response stimuli. This process, known as Gear-copy writing, will attract another 5 – 6 passive readers. Given a passive reader will only apply if there is close to a 100% correlation. Usually all passive readers ‘hit the mark’. Thus, you will now have doubled the number of quality candidates and a ‘desired’ appointment should then emerge. In essence, don’t sacrifice quality for convenience or speed, get it right the first time and minimise the effects of both short- and long-term lost opportunity. It is also important to get the mix of media right (know your target audience, which Gear Advertising can help you with).
Get Gear to write your copy – it costs nothing! (Gear is an Accredited Advertising Agency* which derives its earnings from all media owners (including television and radio) in Southern Africa.
*Gear is an accredited advertising agency (Accreditation # AA2670 19 May 2010) with Media Credit Co-ordinators, a Section 21 company owned by media owners throughout Southern Africa (South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and Botswana)
