Charities | Community Organisations | Associations | HR

Recruiting the best staff starts with an attractive job ad

Sarah Harding
May 10, 2013

Finding the right person to fill a position is hard. Not only does the candidate need to have the right education and experience, but they need to complement other employees and have a passion for your cause and a clear understanding of the orgainsation’s vision and mission. However, all too often not-for-profit (NFP) organisations forget that finding the right employee is a two-way process. A crucial aspect of the recruitment process is effectively marketing your organisation and the particular position.

Clearly state the scope of the role

It’s not enough just to provide a job title; the job ad should provide a detailed description of the role, including key responsibilities and regular day-to-day tasks, as well as an explanation of to whom the candidate will report and whether they will be part of a broader team with bigger goals.

This will give the job seeker a good idea of whether their skills and capabilities match the particular role. It will also help the job seeker envisage themselves in the role and, provided they like what they see, be inspired to apply for the role.

Outline required education and experience required

Including a section that outlines required levels of education, specific training, qualifications and other work experience will enable candidates to assess for themselves whether they are qualified to apply for the position. This will save both your time and theirs if the candidate concludes that they don’t meet the education or experience requirements.

It’s important to distinguish between required experience and desired experience, skills or other competencies. You don’t want to deter a potentially great candidate by providing a long list of requirements that aren’t necessary to adequately undertaking the job.

Highlight the benefits

If you want to attract the best candidates, you need to explain why they should work for your organisation over other NFPs that serve the same or similar causes by highlighting key benefits of working for your organisation. These could relate to workplace culture, team environment or professional development opportunities. In addition, highlight the specific benefits of the role, such as flexible work opportunities, travel and salary packaging options.

The thing that overridingly attracts people to work for a NFP organisation is a passion for the particular cause so it’s a good idea to include your organisation’s vision, mission and values in the job ad. If appropriate, include links to social networking sites so candidates can engage with your organisation and get excited about the prospect of working for you.

Make the ad readable

Job ads need to communicate a lot of important information in a very short amount of space. In order to maximise readability, pay close attention to sentence lengths, layout and design. When writing a job ad you should aim to:

Keep sentences short to maintain engagement

Group information logically

Use subheadings so candidates can easily locate required information

Ensure branding is present but not distracting

Ensure the ad is actionable

Include a detailed set of application instructions so candidates who feel inspired by your job ad know the next steps they need to take to apply for the role.

List all the components required for application (cover letter, resume, work samples etc.); provide an email address as well as a physical address to which candidates can send their application; provide a phone number that candidates can call if they have any questions regarding the position or the application process; and include an application submission deadline.

Ask employees to review the ad

Before posting the job ad, get a valued employee to read over it not only for proofreading purposes but also to judge whether it accurately reflects the organisation and the available position.

Market the position effectively

It’s always worth posting your job ad on your organisation’s website, in the local newspaper and on local community bulletins, but in order to achieve maximum reach you should consider posting the job ad on an online job search engine and online job board as well. In order to reach a more targeted online audience, post your job ad on a specialist NFP job board such as Third Sector’s NFP job board.

Many of the talented staff that you are looking to recruit might not actively be seeking a new role when you post your job ad so use social media outlets to market your job ad. Be sure to highlight the most attractive points of the role and post a link to the full job ad.

Your next job at a glance: 12 things to include in your next job ad