When you start to write a job advert, it can be very easy just to list the day-to-day responsibilities, perhaps the hours and the must have skills. But in today’s job market market, this is not enough to attract good quality, experienced applicants to apply for your job – so you could be missing out on finding your perfect hire.

So, to make sure that your adverts appeal to the best candidates, we have put together 5 things that every candidate wants from a new job. Craft your advert with this in mind, and watch the difference in applications – both the volume & quality.

1. Your company culture

This doesn’t mean you have to sound like Google, but cultural fit is a massive thing for job seekers. Candidates don’t only want to know what their working environment is going to be like & the management style, they want to know about your values, social responsibility – what does your company stand for and how does it make a difference. This is especially important to millennials.

2. Career prospects

No one wants their career to stand still, so if a job advert clearly states the possibility of long-term progression, candidates are far more likely to apply. They want to hear that they have the opportunity to develop their skills & receive additional training. Also phrases like, you will have the opportunity to grow your career and increase responsibilities as the company expands, always prove a hit.

3. Attractive Salary

Money matters. Of course it does, we all have bills to pay. In fact, across all age & experience levels, salary is the highest priority for job seekers looking for a new role. Of course, it is not the only thing people look for in a job, it’s normally always the first.

Always include a salary, don’t just put depending on experience or competitive. Statistics show 2 in 3 job seekers are more likely to apply when a salary is displayed.

4. Good benefits

If you offer good benefits, shout about them. 20 days plus Bank Holidays is not a great benefit, it is the minimum legally you can offer. The same with company pension – in most cases it is the minimum pension an employer can offer by law. Good benefits include; healthcare, substantial holiday, a day off on your birthday and discounted gym membership – these could be the deciding factors when candidates are deciding whether to apply for your job.

5. Flexibility

The majority of job seekers are looking for a good work / life balance. If you can be a bit more flexible with the working hours, which can be a real selling point with candidates with young families.

If you add even some of the above into your advert, you will dramatically increase not only the number of applicants but the quality of applicants, so increasing your chances of making a successful hire.

If you would like any advice with regards to writing good adverts or candidate attraction tips, don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of the team – we’d love to hear from you. 🚀🚀🚀

When hiring a new employee, it’s important to ask the right questions.

But how do you really dig into what makes someone tick as an employee, and how do you determine if they’ll be a good fit for your business — not only in terms of their skills, but also their personality, and as a part of your company culture?

To help you come up with the perfect list of interview questions to ask potential employees, we’ve come up with 44, divided this list into five categories; basic interview questions, behavioral interview questions, salary & career development questions and getting started questions. Pick and choose a handful that feel most applicable from each list.

Happy interviewing! 🚀🚀🚀

Basic interview questions:

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What are your strengths?
3. What are your weaknesses?
4. Why do you want this job?
5. Where would you like to be in your career five years from now?
6. What’s your ideal company?
7. What attracted you to this company?
8. Why should we hire you?
9. What did you like least about your last job?
10. When were you most satisfied in your job?
11. What can you do for us that other candidates can’t?
12. What were the responsibilities of your last position?
13. Why are you leaving your present job?
14. What do you know about this industry?
15. What do you know about our company?
16. Are you willing to relocate?
17. Do you have any questions for me?

Behavioral interview questions:

1. What was the last project you led, and what was its outcome?
2. Give me an example of a time that you felt you went above and beyond the call of duty at work.
3. Can you describe a time when your work was criticized?
4. Have you ever been on a team where someone was not pulling their own weight? How did you handle it?
5. Tell me about a time when you had to give someone difficult feedback. How did you handle it?
6. What is your greatest failure, and what did you learn from it?
7. How do you handle working with people who annoy you?
8. If I were your supervisor and asked you to do something that you disagreed with, what would you do?
9. What was the most difficult period in your life, and how did you deal with it?
10. Give me an example of a time you did something wrong. How did you handle it?
11. Tell me about a time where you had to deal with conflict on the job.
12. If you were at a business lunch and you ordered a rare steak and they brought it to you well done, what would you do?
13. If you found out your company was doing something against the law, like fraud, what would you do?
14. What assignment was too difficult for you, and how did you resolve the issue?
15. What’s the most difficult decision you’ve made in the last two years and how did you come to that decision?
16. Describe how you would handle a situation if you were required to finish multiple tasks by the end of the day, and there was no conceivable way that you could finish them.

Salary questions:

1. What salary are you seeking?
2. What’s your salary history?
3. If I were to give you this salary you requested but let you write your job description for the next year, what would it say?

Career development questions:

1. What are you looking for in terms of career development?
2. How do you want to improve yourself in the next year?
3. What kind of goals would you have in mind if you got this job?
4. If I were to ask your last supervisor to provide you additional training or exposure, what would she suggest?

Getting started questions:

1. How would you go about establishing your credibility quickly with the team?
2. How long will it take for you to make a significant contribution?
3. What do you see yourself doing within the first 30 days of this job?
4. If selected for this position, can you describe your strategy for the first 90 days?

You would think the answer is quite obvious, and being such a key part of the recruitment process to get right, you would think that this is an area that hiring managers, directors, business owners & the like would spend the most time on, ensuring they get it right. Wrong. Just take a couple of minutes do a quick job search on indeed within your industry, and within the first couple of listings I bet you’ll see either a job ad containing just 2 short sentences, or a job ad with loads of spelling mistakes, or someone has just copied and pasted a job spec, full of jargon and about 3 pages long! You’ll probably soon come across all 3.

So, lets just cover the main purpose of a Job Advert…

1. To communicate & sell the opportunity to potential applicants
2. To outline key tasks & responsibilities without sounding like a job description
3. To make the grass look greener (without bending the truth) – why is this opportunity better than the job they currently have?
4. To subtly repel unsuitable candidates who do not have the experience you require
5. Ultimately, to get suitable candidates to apply for the job

What you need to remember is that around 75% of all potential applicants are in work right now – working for one of your competitors. Within this 75%, you are most certainly going to find the best calibre candidates.

The 75% that are currently working, are very time poor – so if they are searching online, they are only doing this either at lunchtime or early evening, most likely whilst they’re eating their tea after a bad day at the office.

With this in mind, you firstly need to ensure that you advert is fully optimised and appears towards the top of the listings, if not – the very top. The potential applicant needs to click the job title and then you need to quickly address the applicants subconscious question of – what is in it for me?

You need to hit their emotional buttons & influence them into applying for your job. Job seekers have become job shoppers!

Remember – the main goal is get them to click the apply button and turn them into an applicant!

So, the next time you hear recruiters, employers, friends & colleagues moaning how job adverts & job boards don’t work anymore. Is it any wonder they receive a poor response? The quality of their job advert is crap.

At Blue Rocket, we are experts in all things recruitment advertising & marketing, so if you’d like any advice or you would like to learn more about our online recruitment advertising solution, please get in touch, we’d be delighted to hear from you 🚀🚀🚀

Here at Blue Rocket, we’ve put together 6 of the most common hiring mistakes, with some advice on how best to avoid them…

1. Not asking the right interview questions

A lot of hiring managers do not take the time to prepare properly for interviews. This means that interviewers can end up just asking superficial questions about previous experience and not really probing a candidate to see how well they will do in the job & if they have the right skills.

2. Not recruiting for a cultural / team fit

Whilst recruiting different personalities with different views, should be seen as a positive – it is important that any new member of staff fits in with the rest of the team. Similar ethics & values, should keep you on the right path.

3. Automatically rejecting overqualified candidates

When initially shortlisting CVs, it can be tempting to take out any candidates who exceed the required experience. You may think that they will not be challenged enough & get bored, or will move on as soon as a more challenging position presents itself. However, think of the advantages taking on someone with more experience & additional skills. This can often outweigh any possible downsides and ultimately, you could get a lot more for less.

4. Missing the opportunity to sell your company

In a candidate short market, job seekers have a lot more choice and often will be presented with a handful of job offers. So, with more competition than ever for the very best candidates, you need to sell your company in the interview. Why should this candidate want to work for you? What is important to them? Talk about the future, talk about your values, the team and of course any benefits, like flexible working or regular social activities.

5. Writing BAD job adverts

Go on indeed.com & take a couple of minutes to scroll through a few jobs either in your town or sector, or both and it won’t be long before you come across a number of really poor written adverts. These adverts have been written with no thought going into them & probably within just a couple of minutes.

Surprisingly, its not always smaller companies who are guilty of this, but large corporates also, and even recruitment agencies, who should really know better – they should be experts at this?

Firstly, you need to optimise your advert so it appears towards the top of the listings, if not – the very top. You need to get the job seekers attention so they click, then you need to hit their emotional buttons – answer the question of what’s in it for me?  Then, influence them into applying for your job. Job seekers have become job shoppers.

6. Only having a small pool of candidates to shortlist & hire from

As with most things in life, the more options you have the better the decision-making process. So, with your recruitment advertising it is vital that you maximise your exposure and this will significantly improve application rates & ultimately give you more choice to hire from.

We would certainly recommend using at least 2 job boards, aggregators such as indeed.com & social media. Our online recruitment advertising bundle is perfect for this, but of course there are other companies out there who offer advertising & recruitment solutions, and of course you can always go to the job boards / online platforms directly.

I hope this helps, and if you’d like any more advice, or if we can be of assistance with your recruitment advertising, we’d be delighted to hear from you   🚀🚀🚀