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When it comes to hiring, your job posting is the frontline of attracting your next talented team member. It's more than just an advertisement for an open position; it's a showcase of your unique company culture, brand, the role itself and the awesome perks of joining your team. 💪
But what distinguishes a job posting from a simple job description? And how can you ensure yours stands out to the right job seekers?
This guide dives into the anatomy of an effective job posting template, providing you with a sample and tips to draw in your next hire!
What is a job posting?
A job posting is a (web)page where you advertise a role you’re hiring for to job seekers. It typically contains a job description, information about your company, perks & benefits and other visual elements that show off what it’s like to work at your company.
There are lots of different ways to go about publishing a job posting. We’ve all seen the typical bland job posts, published as messy PDFs that read more like internal documents than something meant to attract talent.
The best job postings are the ones the ones that treat recruiting as marketing. They are published as beautiful landing pages with engaging copy, inclusive job descriptions, visual elements and storytelling that paints a vivid picture for job seekers about what it’s like to work in the company and role.
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Job posting template
A job posting does two things for your recruitment process:
- It conveys the most important information a job seeker needs to complete an application form and
- It encourages them to apply by sharing why the company is a great place to work and what they’ll get out of the opportunity.
Include these elements in your job posting template and you’ll be sure to hit both of these goals!
Job title
Use a job title that candidates will recognize. Research what job title accurately reflects what you’re looking for. Don’t be tempted to use creative (but tired) titles like Marketing Hero, Coding Guru or Design Rockstar. It’s just meaningless jargon that often signal a toxic work environment that is disguised with fun, zany titles.
Basic information
Be sure to start with the basics like the location, hours and salary range. This is the most important information potential candidates need to know. It also helps the SEO of the job post since Google uses this info to serve the posting to relevant job seekers searching the internet.
About the company
Describe the company’s mission, values, culture, and, most importantly, why candidates should be excited to work at your company. Around 300 words should do it to paint a picture.
About the job
This is the role description. Here you want to tell a story — describe the impact the person in this role will have on the success of the company and its mission. Focus less on tasks and more on the outcomes of the work they'll do. Tell them who they'll work with and what that will be like.
About you (requirements)
Include a mix of hard skills, soft skills and required knowledge your candidate needs. Only include the must-haves and leave out nice-to-haves to keep great talent from unnecessarily disqualifying themselves before applying.
Perks & benefits
It’s crucial to highlight the salary and the perks that enrich employee life beyond the paycheck. While extravagant benefits may not be possible for every company, emphasizing meaningful perks like a beautiful office, team lunches, a central location, flexible hours and a remote work policy can significantly enhance your offer. These seemingly simple benefits reflect a company culture that values its employees, offering a work environment that offers more than just the basic financial rewards.
The hiring process
Include the recruitment process steps in job postings to set clear expectations for candidates. It prepares applicants for what lies ahead and helps them decide if it’s worth their time to apply for the job.
How to apply
Make sure your job posting includes clear information on how to apply. Make sure it’s an easy application process—skip the CV and cover letter. Use a user-friendly application form asking just what’s necessary to decide whether to interview the candidate. Keep it simple!
Remember the job posting doesn’t stop there! Think beyond text and see how you can ✨ woo ✨ your candidate visually. Go all out with team and office photos, illustrations that match your brand, embed your company's Instagram feed and more. Add a beautiful header image that will catch your candidate's eye. Get creative by adding a Spotify playlist with music your team has compiled.
📣 Not sure where to start? Use one of our job post templates to attract talent and reflect your company culture.
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Steps to create an enticing job posting that attracts great talent
Step 1: Write a job brief
List out the job title, skills and traits, desired outcomes and salary range.
Step 2: Write the job description
Follow best practices on how to write a job description or hand the job brief over to a copywriter who can transform this into a captivating description that speaks to candidates. Include everything in the job post template above and you’re all set!
Step 3: Collect visual elements
Gather elements like team photos, office pictures, client logos and icons that illustrate your perks and benefits. These will enrich your job posting, showing candidates what it’s like to work at your company.
Step 4: Build a webpage
Add your job description and visual elements to a landing page. Don’t worry! You don’t need a developer or designer for this. Build an online job post with Homerun’s easy, no-code builder. Stack content blocks like a team grid, office gallery, Instagram feed and even a Spotify playlist in any order or format.
Every image, logo, font and color is in your control for a fully branded job posting. Even connect a custom domain to make it your own.
Step 5: Decide how you want candidates to apply
What do you need to decide whether to interview a candidate? A CV? A cover letter? Or just some answers to basic questions?
Using a Homerun job application form gives you complete control over the information that candidates give you. No need to parse through unstructured motivation letters and CVs.
A Homerun job post contains an “Apply now” button that leads candidates to a user-friendly, customizable application form. The application is then stored and organized in Homerun’s intuitive ATS.
Step 6: Publish your job post
Be sure to link it from your site’s career page or make a career page in Homerun where all new job posts will automatically be linked.
Homerun’s tips for crafting a job post and capturing attention
- Treat your job posting like a page on your company’s website: You may not be a marketing pro but stay with me here! When launching a product, would you create a PDF with walls of text as your promotional tactic? Not a chance. You’d most likely create an engaging landing page, with killer copy and visual elements to tell your story. Do the same for your job post!
- Don't go overboard with bullet points: For a gender-balanced pipeline, only 1/3 of your job description should be made up of bullet points. Research shows that this will keep women and those in traditionally underrepresented groups from self-selecting out.
- Keep it simple, stupid (KISS): Simple, concise sentences between 13 to 17 words perform best. If candidates spend less than six seconds looking at job posts, chances are they won’t stick around to decipher long, confusing sentences.
- Talk to your candidate and not about them: Use "you", "we" and "our" pronouns throughout your description. For example instead of using sentences like "The ideal candidate will know the industry" make it more personal: "You know the ins and outs of our industry."
- Balance gender-coded language: Research shows that some words are gender-coded, and appeal more to one gender than the other which can result in a skewed pool of applicants. Make sure your job description is neutral by running your text through a tool like the gender decoder.
- Keep it short: Job descriptions with 600-700 words perform best. More on how to divide this word count over the different components of your job description below.
Job post FAQs
