5 Things Job Seekers Wish You’d Put in a Listing

A lot of companies are having trouble drawing the kind of dedicated and highly skilled talent they’d like to see filling their key roles. Of course, it’s nice to have high standards right down to the coffee intern, but businesses everywhere are finding themselves either going short staffed or compromising on quality. At the same time, studies are revealing how important it is to find employees of the right personalities and lifestyles for your company culture, adding one more complication to the task of finding good hires. One thing you can do to help the situation is to improve your listings for job seekers.

Often the most appealing listings are the ones that wear their business culture on their sleeves and give you a real idea of the personality-nougat inside the hard chocolate shell of corporate presentation. This gives job seekers a better idea of who you are and whether or not they’re a good fit for your team. To help the process, here are five things most job seekers wish you would share on job listings, but most companies never do:

1) Team Personalities

When job seekers are skimming through hundreds of potential positions, saying that you’re hard working and dedicated to customer service simply isn’t useful information because that’s assumed. What they really want to know is whether or not you match their sense of humor. Is the office full of chipper morning people or is there a regular coffee-pot crowd? When a team gets behind on a project, to they lock down or ease the tension with painfully funny puns?

2) Your Realistic Skill Expectations

A long list of skills may make you feel like you’ll get a grade-A pro, but most people are acutely aware of what they do and do not know and these lists can be pretty intimidating. Job seekers understand that you would like someone who’s familiar with every POS platform under the sun, but it’s hard to measure up when you say it like that. Instead, try asking for someone with the truly necessary skills and the attitude of an active learner willing to dive in and get up-to-speed on the ‘everything else’ list.

3) What the Break Room is Like

The break room is an important part of employee stress relief, but some break rooms are seriously nasty. Even if your break room is perfectly clean, the way it’s decorated and how employees treat it is a huge indication of your true company culture. Whether your business-casual or silicon valley chic, most employees don’t get a chance to see this all-important room until they’re already hired, but they’d definitely like a peek beforehand.

4) Flexible Schedule Options

Lets’ face it, most employees will eventually need time off. Even the workaholics who like making perfect attendance and staying late to clean up may one day have to stay home with a sick child and knowing how welcoming a company is to their occasional scheduling needs is a big decider for most job seekers. When you’re up front about a company daycare, sick days, or flexible parent hours, you’re a lot more likely to get enthusiastic applicants who have noticed a rare opportunity to be a good employee and parent at the same time.

5) Opportunities for Advancement

You want employees who want promotions, right? These employees are more likely to work harder, try to improve their stats, and will support their entire team more enthusiastically when they feel there are raises and promotions in their future. On the flip side, job seekers want a job where they will have opportunities for advancement. Even if you didn’t plan to cover this topic until six months in, you can provide this vital source of motivation from before day-1 by mentioning upward mobility in the listing itself.

Finally, when writing your job listings, remember that you’re talking to people, not another company. You want employees who will be happy and productive in your open positions and they want to know that they’ll be welcome in both personality and working style in the new environment. In other words, you want the same things, and you can make that happen with a listing that speaks to real human concerns instead of some corporate ideal employee.

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