Menu
a_lady_in_corporate_attire_looking_at_a_computer

12 Things To Do Right Now To Get More Job Applicants

Table of Contents

Not getting the job applicants you want? Not getting as many job applicants in the current market conditions? We got you covered with 12 actionable things you can do right now to increase the quantity (and hopefully quality) of the job applicants you could get.

These steps aren’t just simple “review your job advertisement” type of stuff. These are steps that you can add to or take away right now from your existing job advertising and application process.

The things you can do right now to get more job applicants are:

  1. Keep the job advert short
  2. Advertise a realistic job preview
  3. Use a mix of gendered words in the job advert
  4. Include accurate salary figures in the job advert
  5. Post jobs adverts at the start of the workweek
  6. Add a video to the job advert
  7. Ask existing staff and contractors for potential applicants
  8. Use influencer marketing
  9. Look past geographic constraints
  10. Make it easy to apply for the job
  11. Build your employer brand
  12. Offer signing bonuses

The first eight items on this list relate more to the job advertisement itself, and the following four relate more to the application or recruitment process as a whole.

Just looking at the items on this list, you can already zoom in on some things that you can do right now to get more job applicants. Ensure you get the full picture of these steps from the article below.

1. Keep The Job Advert Short

Need I say more?

You might want to include absolutely every perk of the job in the job advert, but when it starts overflowing to two pages long, the applicant’s eyes are going to glaze over.

Let’s face it. Job applicants are typically going to go through a whole bunch of job adverts together, not just yours. This means that they won’t have time to read through how great your job is. 

This means that you should keep the advert short and well-structured. Include the headers where you want to divide your message, and bullet point your benefits. The idea is for the potential applicant to get as much information about the job vacancy in as little time as possible. 

Also along these lines, is the idea of keeping things to their bare essentials. This includes shortening the list of job requirements to a minimum.

A long list of job requirements will scare some applicants away. They will wonder if they can meet every requirement and tick every checkbox on your long list. When they feel that they don’t meet all or a majority of the requirements (even though some requirements are in reality just nice-to-haves), then they simply won’t apply. In their mind, they might be thinking that they won’t stand a chance if they can’t meet all these “requirements” and won’t even try. As a result, you lose out on potentially good applicants.

By all means, have your own full list of job requirements, this will be helpful during the interview and selection phase when deciding who to hire. You just don’t have to advertise all of the requirements. An essential five or six requirements should do the trick. Requirements like educational attainment or licenses (e.g. driver’s license) that are needed for the job can stay on the list. However, every employer is looking for a “good communicator”, so meaningless requirements like those should not be included.

If anything else, let the data convince you. Linkedin analyzed 4.5 job posts across the US and UK, and found that short job advertisements led to 8.4% more applications than the average.

2. Advertise A Realistic Job Preview

This is basically “telling it like how it is”.

It might seem counterintuitive at first. Shouldn’t you want to sell the job and play it up as much as you can in the job advert? I’m not telling you to stop selling the job, what I am saying is to not lie about it.

Don’t say that the job has perks that it doesn’t actually have or a great work environment that doesn’t actually exist. Even if playing it up does lead to more job applicants, when they become new hires, they will be more likely to leave after seeing that the reality of the job did not meet their expectations.

An anecdotal story my HR professor used to love telling was about nurses in rural Western Australia. A clinic in the area advertised their nursing jobs as being in a vibrant town (it was not) with white sandy beaches (it was a pebble beach). Nurses would apply and get the job, only to be hit by the reality of a challenging work environment (difficult access to medication, etc.) and the lack of recreational activities. Understandably, these nurses would soon resign. The clinic was in an endless spiral of finding replacement nurses only to quickly lose them again. Change happened when the clinic was then advised to just “tell it like it is”. The new job adverts talked about the challenges and the reality of the job. Surprisingly, they did still have nurses who applied and got hired. Better still, these nurses stuck around because they like that challenge and were getting exactly what they expected.

Giving a realistic idea of what the job is like might decrease the overall number of job applicants. But it will certainly increase the number of quality job applicants who really want what you have to offer.

3. Use A Mix Of Gendered Words In The Job Advert

The other items on this list might not sound new to you, but this one most probably will. This point is based on research by Danielle Gaucher, Justin Friesen, and Aaron C. Kay in 2011.

In a nutshell, the researchers found that using masculine terms in job adverts correlated with women finding these job adverts less appealing. The opposite, men finding job adverts with feminine terms less appealing, was also true. 

Examples of words that counted as being masculine are: active, driven, fearless. Examples of words that counted as being feminine are: connect, inclusive, support.

It should be noted that this was also affected by whether the job advert was for a role traditionally seen as male or female dominated.

Based on that, it is not a stretch to figure out that moving from a gendered advert to a more gender-neutral advert will help to attract more job applicants of the gender that might have initially felt excluded. You can do this by using an equal mix of both masculine and feminine words in the job advert.

If you are wondering how to pull that off, fear not, I have found a tool for you. This job advertisement gender decoder tool will analyze your job advert and determine if it swings more to being masculine or feminine. The margins in this tool are slim though; only when there are an exact number of masculine to feminine words will it show as gender-neutral. But it’s up to you how to apply this tool.

4. Include Accurate Salary Figures In The Job Advert

You’ve probably heard from job candidates that “money doesn’t matter” or that they are “motivated by passion”. Despite what they can say, the evidence doesn’t lie; money really does matter.

In a study of 450 participants by LinkedIn, 61% of participants indicated that the salary section of the job advert was the most helpful. By rank, compensation was listed as the most helpful indicator, followed by required qualifications (49% of participants) and details of the job (also 49%).

When it comes down to it, people are working to put food on the table, so it is understandable for them to know what’s in it for them if they were to take up your job.

It really just boils down to clear communication. If it is clear that your salary on offer matches what the candidate is looking for, they will be more likely to apply. If there is a clear mismatch between what you are offering and what they are seeking, then so be it. At least everyone knows where they stand.

What is worse is unclear communication. Not having the salary figure in the advert will mean that job candidates will have to guess the figure. While it’s still manageable for candidates to get this guess slightly wrong, it is terrible if they get it completely wrong. I have seen many awkward conversations during interviews when the truth (and the mismatch) is revealed. It’s the kind of awkward conversation that I won’t even wish on my worst enemies.

Similar to advertising a realistic job preview, putting an accurate salary figure may not directly increase your total number of applicants, but it will increase the number of interested applicants. These are the applicants who see the salary figure and think that it is at their level or a nice step up in their career ladder.

If such a small change can lead to all these benefits, why not make the change right now?

5. Post Jobs Adverts At The Start Of The Workweek

Here is a quick tip for you: Post job adverts on Mondays.

Based on the same data of 4.5 million job posts on LinkedIn, the best time to post a job advert is on Monday. The data found that most job advert views and applications happen on Monday and gradually decrease over the week, finally hitting a low point on Saturday.

There wasn’t an explanation attached to the data, but I don’t think it’s too far a stretch to assume the reason is how Mondays make us all feel.

Regardless, posting job adverts on Mondays, or at least having the job advert be live over a Monday should lead to a higher likelihood of applicants.

6. Add A Video To The Job Advert

Nowadays, it’s not too hard to see how videos are changing our experience online. You can find some quick facts about using videos and their advantages from LinkedIn here. For example, 95% of people retained a video’s message versus 10% retention of the same message in text.

From my experience doing video campaigns for job adverts and employer value propositions (more on that below), videos can broadcast a message in ways that text or static images never can. In fact, videos can also send messages that are practically impossible to send via other forms of media. Videos of your work environment or your staff members talking about work can implicitly give job seekers a sense of trust and a deeper understanding of what it’s like to work at your organization.

All these messages will play a role in the job seeker’s decision-making. The clearer you make your role, your organization, and your offer, the easier it is for the potential candidates to decide to apply for your role. This should be contrasted with the opposite: candidates not applying for your role because they couldn’t fully understand the role or had doubts about what you had to offer.

I will admit that customized videos take substantial time and resources to produce. However, you could look at creating shorter, more candid videos made on a smartphone. Even such videos are of good quality nowadays and are good enough to reap the benefits of having a video. Best of all, you make a short video like that right now.

7. Ask Existing Staff And Contractors For Potential Applicants

Getting back to your roots with good old word-of-mouth marketing.

Unless your current job vacancy is going to be your first hire, you have existing staff members who can potentially become your word-of-mouth evangelists. This could extend to the contractors whom you work with as they could spread the word as a favor to you.

I probably don’t have to explain to you how word-of-mouth marketing works or how it will translate to more applicants for your job adverts. It could even happen without your input. What I want to point out is how you can take it to the next level by incentivizing it, commonly known as an employee referral program.

By offering a reward of sorts, you can help motivate your staff members, contractors, or other associates into action and maybe try a little harder to spread the word. These rewards need not be monetary either, time off work or public acknowledgment can work too. The idea is to create an incentive for this referring behavior, where previously there was none. Free feel to experiment with your mix of rewards and make sure that these incentives don’t backfire on you.

8. Use Influencer Marketing

Here is a bit of a fringe idea. Most guides on getting more applicants will tell you to “use social media”. How about taking that a step further and using influencer marketing?

Influence marketing, for the uninitiated, is paying already well-known social media figures to promote your message. In this case, the message being promoted would be your job vacancy and why your organization is such a great place to work for.

It used to be that “using social media” required either creating social media content to build up an authentic following or paying for an ad placement on said social media sites. Influencers let you in on the best of both worlds, giving direct access to their authentic audience for a fee. In some cases, the influencer themselves can add credibility to the message as well.

Influencer marketing is already widely used to promote consumer products and services, so why not do the same for your job vacancies? You can start by reaching out to these influencers and offering them a sponsorship.

That said, your choice of social media would be important too. Influencers on strong entertainment-focused social media sites might not be the best, however, places like LinkedIn might be more suitable.

The next 4 sections below are going to tactics and strategies that go beyond the job advert and relate to actions you can take that surround the recruitment process itself.

9. Look Past Geographic Constraints

In my experience, a lot of employers are hesitant to hire outside of their country’s borders. Common reasons cited are cultural fit concerns, the time needed to import workers, and (worst of all) immigration requirements.

I can see how these are valid concerns. Especially if you are a small business, you don’t have the resources to spare to look into hiring globally. Immigration compliance can be a minefield if done wrong.

However, if you could put aside those concerns for a second and just imagine being able to hire globally, it is (quite literally) opening up a whole new pool of job seekers. With a decision you can make right now, you can increase the potential job applicants you can get.

Many of the concerns about hiring foreigners can be overcome with guides, implementing processes, or just getting an employment agency to help you. With the rise of remote work, this is another option if your business supports it. You could hire foreigners who can work remotely, from wherever they are, with no relocation time needed.

10. Make It Easy To Apply For The Job

I don’t need a psychological study to tell you that making something easier will make people more likely to do said thing. Therefore, making the recruitment process easier will make more potential candidates actually complete their applications.

The stats on uncompleted job applications can be staggering. Data from Appcast showed a whopping 92% of job seekers do not end up completing their job application. In a world where instant gratification is a norm, it can be easy to reason that if the job application process is too long or too difficult, some candidates just give up.

One could argue that if the applicants weren’t going to stick to the process, they probably weren’t interested enough in the role. However, the counter-argument is that it is better to get as many applicants as possible. Losing applicants doesn’t just mean losing them to the process, it could mean losing them to other companies, including your competitors.

As a practical solution, you can make the initial job application as easy as possible. Just ask for the resume, cover letter, contact info, and one to five critical employment questions upfront. You can always ask for more information in subsequent steps of the recruitment process.

The idea here is to do what you can to get as many applicants as you can right now, and you can always decline them later on.

11. Build Your Employer Brand

A CEO of a marketing company once told me that there are 3 forms of branding: Customer Brand, Corporate Brand, and Employer Brand. In the case of attracting job applicants, your employer brand is what matters.

Employer branding is the process of building a company’s reputation in the labor marketplace. It is a marketing strategy that helps potential employees understand what it’s like to work for your company. 

Put in another way, it is the process of creating a compelling employer value proposition (EVP) and communicating it to potential employees.

The goal of employer branding is to create an environment where potential candidates are excited about working for your company and current employees are proud to work for you. When you have a strong employer brand, you will attract more job applicants who want to work for your company because they know what they will be getting into.

Your employer brand or EVP is one of the strongest long-term tools you can use to attract applicants. However, as you have read in the previous paragraph, getting employer branding right is not just as simple as a marketing message. You really do have to create a work environment that supports the EVP. It is pointless to craft a great branding message, only to have job applicants discover the truth of your work environment and have your crafted image shattered in their minds (see Realistic Job Preview above).

An employer brand will take time to develop and to get right. You might have to change your actual workplace culture or let it develop naturally, and either will take time. The good news is that it is possible for you to cultivate workplace culture to fit your goals. My advice here would be: the sooner you start developing your ideal workplace culture, the better. So, why not start right now?

Once you have a solid EVP in hand, you can use some of the other methods listed above (particularly using current staff or influencers as evangelists and putting your EVP into a video) to spread the message.

12. Offer Signing Bonuses

A signing bonus is an incentive that companies may provide to a new employee. It is usually a one-time monetary sum designed to make the total employment compensation package more appealing and attractive.

If all the methods listed above are ways to finesse more applicants, then you can think of signing bonuses as the brute force weapon. 

The logic behind signing bonuses is simple: Want more applicants? Just give them a chance to ‘win’ a prize for applying, on top of getting the job.

Despite this simplicity, signing bonuses have pros and cons too.

Offering a sign-on bonus is a great way to attract top talent and make your offer more competitive than other potential employers. It can be a key factor in convincing the candidate to choose your job over another offer, as it will make their first year at the job more lucrative.

On the other hand, you will need to make sure that you have the upfront cash to pay for the signing bonus. Also after the first year or two of work, after the shine of the bonus has run out, the new hire who received the bonus might become disinterested in the role and choose to leave. In those circumstances, the effectiveness or ‘mileage’ of the signing bonus would come into question.

A signing bonus won’t apply to all organizations or all situations. Neither would I recommend that it be used widely either. However, you could use it if you were strategic about it (or just desperate).

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has given you at least a couple of actions you can put into place to increase your job applicant count right now. Not all of these would be applicable to all organizations in all scenarios, and there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution. However, you could try some of the solutions on this list and see which ones work for you.

Good luck recruiting!

Sources

Related Posts

Back To Top

Disclaimer/Legal

The short: There are affiliate links sprinkled throughout this website that will generate commissions for us at no additional cost to you. Additionally, all information presented on this website is for educational purposes only.

The long: HiringManagerHelp.com (“HMH”) is a website operated from Canterbury, New Zealand. HMH is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program… more…

Subscribe To Us

Subscribe to our mailing list and receive helpful articles on hiring and management!

Remember to tick the box to agree to receive updates from us.