Ask any fisherman about how to catch the specific type of fish you want, and they will reply—it depends on the bait you use. The same is true about attracting candidates: it’s all about writing the advertisement. Regardless of where the advertisement is placed or which media is used, the construction of a good advertisement is essential if we are trying to attract the best people for our organization.
In this example, we look at an advertisement for a Senior Finance Manager who will be running a finance department of 30 people.
The advertisement can be broken down into four parts.
Part One: PR
The advertisement gives us the first opportunity of showing what a great organization we are—use the advertisement not only to attract the right candidates, but also as a PR tool for your organization. Please remember this, as the whole of the recruitment process is about creating and demonstrating a positive aspect of your organization. You want good applicants to be attracted to your organization and to apply—the advertisement is your shop window (Lievens @ De Paepe, 2004).
One of the fastest growing and successful pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland, employing more than 3,500 people, has a rare vacancy for an Sr. Finance Manager based in our headquarters in Geneva. Salary in excess of €189,000.00 with an impressive range of benefits and a target-linked bonus scheme.
Outline of the job. This should be a broad-brush explication of the main duties involved and can normally be taken from the job description. In this section, it’s very important that you use the words that will attract the right personality type for the job advertised. Broadly speaking, introverts are attracted to jobs in finance, audit, research, IT, some legal jobs, backroom jobs in trading shares, archives, etc. They are normally motivated by words such as attention to detail, strict adherence to rules and deadlines, working to tight fiscal limits, tight regulatory control. Extroverts would be more motivated by power words such as highly competitive environment, challenging work, high risk, opportunity to excel and prove yourself, large amount of social interaction. Extroverts are normally found in sales, marketing, PR, advertising, TV, and radio.
For this job and the context of the work, our power words would come from those of an introvert disposition.
This key position involves managing the day-to-day running of a busy finance department of 30 employees delivering financial service to our business. Delivery to tight deadlines and meticulous attention to detail are essential. As a company listed on the Swiss Exchange, we need our Senior Financial Manager to lead and drive our team in terms of International Financial Reporting Standards and their development. Our Senior Financial Manager will also need significant expertise in Swiss taxation legislation.
Part Three: Requirements
This is where we list the key criteria, which should be available in the job description. As mentioned before, this is sometimes referred to as the key competencies, or deal breakers. We list these in two columns—Essentials and Desirables. This makes it easy for prospective candidates to clearly see what’s needed and at a later stage make the job of writing interview questions easier and more precise (Brtek, and Motowildo, 2002). It also gives us a template to do very precise short-listing.
This part of the selection process is very important as it sets the basis for the Psychological Contract between the organization and its potential employee. It is the first and basic idea that the candidate gets of what will be expected of them throughout their stay in the organization.
Part Four: Information
You need to state any other information that the candidate needs to be aware of—where to get more information. Closing date and the power sentence that will stop time wasters, the unqualified, and other unsuitable people from applying.
Details of this position showing the organizational chart, department structure, full range of benefits, and either an online application or downloadable copy are available on our website link www.swisspharma/Deparmtnet_finance_manager.org.
Closing date for all applications is 26/02/2015.
A current (no more than 6 months old) head-and-shoulders passport-type photo must be attached to your application.
PLEASE NOTE, all successful short-listed applicants will be tested.
At Step 2 of our recruitment process, we have now constructed our advertisement—to attract good people and, importantly, dissuade others from applying and wasting our time. The process of writing the advertisement is best done with the line manager as it is critical to get the Essentials and Desirables list right, as it will be used for the short-listing and for prewriting our interview questions at Step 3.
One of the fastest growing and successful pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland, employing more than 3,500 people, has a rare vacancy for a Sr. Finance Manager based in our headquarters in Geneva. Salary in excess of €189,000.00 with an impressive range of benefits and a target-linked bonus scheme.
This key position involves managing the day-to-day running of a busy finance department of 30 employees delivering financial service to our business. Delivery to tight deadlines and meticulous attention to detail are essential. As a company listed on the Swiss Exchange, we need our Senior Financial Manager to lead and drive our team in terms of International Financial Reporting Standards and their development. Our Senior Financial Manager will also need significant expertise in Swiss taxation legislation.
Details of this position showing the organizational chart, department structure, full range of benefits, and either an online application or downloadable copy are available on our website link www.swisspharma/Deparmtnet_finance_manager.org.
Closing date for all applications is 26/02/2015.
A current (no more than 6 months old) head-and-shoulders passport-type photo must be attached to your application.
PLEASE NOTE, all successful short-listed applicants will be tested.
Take care with the information you send the applicant. If you have a complete no-smoking policy, it needs to be mentioned. Even things like dress code should be included—all this information must be provided before the application is processed. We live in a world of increasing litigation, so ignore this small point at your peril.
Step 2: Summary
• The advertisement is a superb publicity tool—use it wisely.
• The advertisement must focus on the key criteria needed for the position to be successfully filled.
• The advertisement needs to clearly list the essentials and desirables in the lists. This then makes it easy at stage four—short-listing.
• Mention in the advertisement that all successful short-listed candidates will be tested, which will act as an automatic barrier for any dishonest people who are thinking of applying for the job.
• The cost of the advertisement is insignificant. HR people get oversensitive about the cost of interviewing—the cost does not really matter. Recruiting is such a major long-term investment that cutting costs on this process makes no sense at all.
Lievens @ De Paepe, 2004. An empirical investigation of interviewer-related factors that discourage the use of high structure interviews. Journal of Organizational Behavior 25, 29–46.
Brtek, M.D., and Motowildo, S.J. (2002). Effects of procedure and outcome accountability on interview validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 185–191.