The job description: It’s boring. It’s canned . . . with the exception of a few adjusted bullet points (typically the job requirements, and the rest has read the same year after year). Yet, the issues here are deeper than just those few recruiting-driven paragraphs, and employers better take note.

I am indeed a firm recruiter. Yet, I have a background of in-house talent acquisition in the Fortune 500 world (Land O’Lakes, Wells Fargo). I get that there is compliance and regulation around these pieces of public company information. You can, however, still get creative, be unique, and stand out as an employer. In fact, you need to. If you’re not, you are losing candidates in the market to your competitors. These days, talent is noticing lacks of innovation and progressive movement within prospective employers – from product lines to corporate culture – and your job description is often what they see first.

And guess what? There’s no added cost to write more creatively! Some companies spend $200k/year on LinkedIn Recruiter accounts, enterprise-level talent community softwares and paid job advertising. Take a bit of time to work with HR and Corporate Communications to revise your job postings so that candidates aren’t yawning after the first three sentences, and you’ll see the best talent attraction ROI yet.

Here’s what some companies are doing, and why they’re attracting top talent. [These examples are from actual job postings that are public information]:

This example job description [above] engages the reader with a question. Then, it gives them a relevant statistic. A statistic – how brilliant! Nothing tells a story like raw data, right? Read on and you’ll notice calls to action, more engagement through questions, and an explanation of the job that captivates the reader instead of putting them to sleep.

Well done, HubSpot. Next . . .

Here [above], we have a job description for an in-house recruiter. It’s exciting! “Come join the fun and build something great” is exactly what everyone wants to do. Within the text, you see some snippets of the company’s core values right in the description; you see the critical common elements of any recruiter’s job (understanding business needs, sourcing channels, posting and screening, etc.). And best of all: “Write electric, irresistible job descriptions and job postings.” Yes, it is in the recruiter’s job description to market the living daylights out of the company.

Bravo, LeadPages! Next . . .

This is a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 corporation . . . in the financial industry (can’t get much more compliance-bound than that). Yet, we’ve still got reader engagement out of the gate with the opening questions. Then, where most companies headers would read, “JOB RESPONSIBILITIES” this one says, “What you get to do.” (Which version is more captivating)? The second bullet of that section gives the applicant context: “ . . . you are one of their key thought partners for their first three years.” (Yes, that’s right – we’re talkin’ to you)!

Loving it, Thrivent Financial!

Folks, times are changing. Some of the biggest employers with the most reputable employer brands are going through incredibly challenging change. Top talent is shopping around more mindfully and holistically. If you are competing for top talent and thinking your established blue chip employer brand will continue to serve as ‘recruitment marketing,’ you may have been missing out on key hires for some time now, and furthermore, I believe this is the wrong attitude. When I was in corporate recruiting, I used to say that recruiting is 1-part HR, 1-part project management, and 1-part sales & marketing. It’s time to engage that marketing function a bit more. A little creativity here makes a significant business impact.

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