Sample Recruiting Advertisement

*Disclaimer: employment laws vary by jurisdiction. I encourage you to run your general ad format by a good attorney before posting any ads.

See an annotated example of a good recruiting ad with this worksheet.

Think carefully about exactly how much experience you require in your ad, because the higher you set that bar, the fewer the applicants you get. Many jobs are straightforward enough that the right people can learn the fundamentals and start contributing quickly, even if they’ve never done the job before. You can’t change someone’s character, work ethic, or native intelligence, but you can develop skills. For example, the US Navy spends years training fighter pilots. But how about the personnel on aircraft carrier decks who launch the screaming jets into the air with steam catapults? Some load high explosives while others taxi the aircraft. These extremely hazardous positions require expert abilities, but the Navy qualifies sailors to perform these jobs in less than a year. These twenty-somethings play supersonic dodgeball with thirty-ton war machines on a frenzied air station smaller than a football field. Remember this next time you’re tempted to run a recruiting ad that requires five years of experience and a master’s degree.