Recruitment Success Part 2: How To Post Job Ads to Find Top Performers

So let's talk about your job posting and advertising because that's sort of the, you know, tip of the spear, right? The first thing is you have to know your avatar. What do I mean by an avatar? Well, in marketing, if you spend any time in the marketing world when they create an avatar, it's not just, you know, we're selling to middle aged women, we're selling to a middle aged woman named Stu and she shopped at XYZ store and she does this on the weekend and these are the magazines she reads. And you get this really rich profile of exactly who it is that's your customer. But here's what happens when it comes to employees is we mistake the fact that we're not allowed to have age or gender bias or any of those other things. We mistake that law for one, about how we write job ads. And you write really generic job ads targeted at nobody. Now here's the truth. You know, if you have a door knocking salesperson, who that is, if I asked you, each of you individually write down who it is, there'd be probably less than 5% difference between what do you write down. So write your job ad for that person where they're at in life, where their decision making. And by the way, if you're only posting one job posting for the job, you're probably underperforming because isn't it true there's probably, you know, a guy that's finishing up sort of his first real job and now he's front grade, realizes he actually needs a career and he's not happy where he's at. That might be my avatar. Now that doesn't mean I'm not going to advertise for my women or I'm not going to advertise. I'm just going to write a separate job ad. One for who is my avatar, target person. But secondly, what's the phase of life they're at? I might be targeting one person who is fed up, feeling unappreciated, knows they need to get a career. That's one job ad. Another one might be somebody that's killing it, loves where they're at, but they know that they could have more. My tone and how I write for those are going to be different in my job posting. So know your avatar. The second thing is you want to describe the person, not the role. You have to grab attention. What do I mean by that? Pull out your job advertisements. Most of them start out when describing the company or the role, I want you to go start your first paragraph are a hundred percent describing the avatar. It's nothing about the job, it's describing the avatar and their motivation and what their win is, what's in it for them, completely disconnected from the job to be done. Have you ever went out onto Amazon and did you still buy a book, leadership book or I don't know, maybe you're in. You know, Roman, you Google and you get these virtual books, shelves with COVID images of the books. You don't actually click in and read the forward of every book. You go, oh, that one looks interesting, caught my eye. Click on it. I read two seconds. Ah, it's not that I go click on another one. Your job posting is exactly the same and especially in roofing, you're casting a pretty wide net. In some cases you're right there in a role. And I don't mean this to demeaning but but where people could be on the edges of society, right? Meaning they haven't decided what their career is. So they're looking at a lot of things. Your job is to describe the person, not the role. So when they see themselves in that job ad they go, oh, I had never considered doing this, but that sounds exactly like me. Hopefully that makes sense. Third point. And then we're going to look at an actual job ad. If your compensation is a hundred percent commission, it should never be a hundred percent commission. That's my own personal bias. I know I'm going against the grain here. Look, we have humans in our company. Only excuse for not paying somebody a base wage is because you don't have confidence in your business. You don't have confidence that your business can deliver, select, train and manage people. Because when you have that perfected, if you knew I invest 5k, I get 20k back and you knew that with confidence, a hundred percent commission wouldn't matter. The only reason 100% commission matters is, is if you suck as a business in finding and developing great people. Now when is that not true? Does it work? Sure it works. If you are a massive company with a huge reputation, people would knock down your door, you're Apple and people would die to work for you. You could probably pay a hundred percent commission and still get the top of the barrel. If you're paying a hundred percent commission, you're already starting at the bottom of the barrel for sure. Because if a salesperson knows their worth in the market, if a leader knows their worth in the market, the days of people wanting to work for 100% commission, they can go work at Amazon and do pretty good. So let's say you are a hundred percent commission or there is some portion of variable compensation. I believe there always should be. When you describe this in the job, what mistake do I see people make? They give a really wide range. They say you can make between 70 and 150k or I saw the other day 60 to 300k unlimited earning potential. Well, all of that might be true but your candidate's going to read that and they're going to read B S. That's the thought they're going to have and they're going to pass over your ad. So when you describe compensation 1 start with a really narrow range. What is the number that if they don't earn that you wouldn't keep them? They don't earn 100k right. It's not worth to have them on my team because I'm paying for leave. Whatever that is, put that number in. It's not. You can earn anywhere from 80 to 120. It is. You will earn 120k and you change the term can earn really important. So I'm going to slow down change the phrase from canner to muster so it'll read like this. As the accessible candidate, you must earn $150,000 their first year or they're no longer a part of our team. Comma, because and you have to give a reason because we have a processing plate that generates sufficient leads and a training program that helps use Excel. And with that level of commitment to you, you have a commitment back to the organization who's going to shy away from applying to that job. It is your underperformer because they don't want a standard. Your high performer is going to say look, they know exactly what I can make and this is a step up for me. People aren't looking for a lateral move in the ad. Later you can put it's a variable mix of base plus whatever. You can put that in there if you'd like to. You should be truthful in your ad that it is a hundred percent commission but not when you're posting on indeed what the rate is or when you describe the compensation. Describe it as must earn 120k or whatever that number is. Here's an actual job ad and I won't read to you the whole thing, but I'll read you the first part of it. Sim Korean Roofing, a veteran owned company continues to grow due to our increasing market share and robust customer demand. We are in need of additional outside sales representative for a roofing division. How many of you want me to put reading already. It's like blah blah blah. Your candidate's never going to get past that. In fact, and here they say our sales team serves a wide range of customers. We offer the best compensation program, unlimited income opportunity. They talk about being a veteran led company like, I don't know, Centurion Roofing, a veteran owned company. I mean no disrespect to our veterans, but I've met some veterans I never want to work for. This means nothing unless you give it meaning. It is important. It is an aspect of their company. But you better tell your applicant why it matters. So let's show what a rewrite looks like. It looks like this. You notice how the job ad looks one, you're going to get fired by your English teacher because they're not complete sentences and they're not not complete paragraphs and we don't care. Every line is a text message. It's a tweet and it speaks to the person. Done working for someone that doesn't get it. Like if you're looking at job ads and you click in right, how long does that take you to process as opposed to this? Now remember I said write for the avatar. This avatar was designed for somebody that would be frustrated with their current employer. Done working for someone that doesn't get it. That doesn't understand the meaning of loyalty, commitment, crushing every challenge. Know you're built for more if you're ready to be a part of something bigger that actually means something. Keep reading. That's the hook then keep reading. Now notice here, veteran owned company they tell you why we're a veteran owned and operated and we know how to build a team that delivers no matter what. In the military we learned that failure isn't an option. We bring that relentless drive to every project we undertake. We're looking for a salesperson that has an immediate need to make 125k. In fact, we won't keep you if you don't. Now unscientific evidence. Read this ad versus this ad. How many of you think you're going to get better quality candidates in the front door? Just from the second. If you had to guess the performance of AD1 versus AD2 with the same AD spend on indeed AD number two out pulled by 13 times AD number one in the volume of qualified candidates coming due writing matters. You have to be crystal clear on who it is you want applying for your job. And when you see them, you have to be in a position to recognize this is the person and I can actually.