Your guide to job descriptions / Creative job description formats
Creative job description formats
4 alternative approaches to make your job descriptions stand out
The average job seeker spends just 14 seconds* reviewing a job description before deciding if they’ll apply or not. That’s why your job description format matters. While a standard job description may suit your needs, it’s important to consider formats that can help you stand out from your competitors in order to attract the best candidates.
By experimenting with different formats, you can discover which approach works best for your job posting. Whether that takes the shape of an infographic, video job description, or even a comic strip will depend on your desired audience and your brand voice.
Here are a few innovative job description formats and how you can use them for your next open role.
* For LinkedIn’s heat map study, we surveyed 450 members from the LinkedIn Market Research community (in partnership with Vision Critical) comprising LinkedIn members across industries, job functions, and career stage.
Which format is best for your next open role?
Determining which of these alternative formats works best for your organisation will come down to experimentation. But, by taking an innovative approach to your job description, you can gain a competitive advantage when it comes to making your next great hire.
Video job description
What is it?
Video job description can take the form of a 1-to-2-minute video that includes a summary of the position's responsibilities, qualifications, and expectations. It is a great way to give candidates an authentic look at your organisation.
Why use it?
A video job description is a useful complement or alternative to the traditional written approach. It can humanise your workplace, highlight your company culture, and increase engagement with your job post as it is easily shared on social media, Career Pages, or your company website. In a study by Recruiter.com, they found that the video job description ads boosted engagement with a 500% increase in clicks and 50% more applications. Even better, the unique format actually allowed the company to reduce media spend by 30%.
See an example
Video job description from Danone
How to use it?
This format works best when you feature real employees in the video in an authentic way. It is worth adding subtitles, so people can read it if they don’t have headphones readily available. And you don’t always need a professional video, sometimes a mobile phone or GoPro video can do the trick.
Tips to get started with your video job description:
Be sure to involve your marketing team in the conversation early. They can be a valuable resource in the process to guide you on best practices, source stock footage or help you find vendors to produce the video if you’re looking for something more professional. Plus it will ensure that the final video is on brand.
Make sure to keep it short and interesting. 1 minute to 3 minutes is ideal. Make sure to think about it from the perspective of the candidate. What questions can you help answer? What concerns do you think they will have? How can you highlight your company’s unique strengths in a fun and engaging way.
Think about ways to “templatize” the video to make it easy to repurpose for multiple roles, so you don’t have to start from scratch every time. You could start with the same intro or outro and just adjust the section in the middle. You can also consider shooting some generic stock footage around the office of meetings in action, employees enjoying the kitchen or lobby, your company logo, so you have a variety of options to leverage for future videos to make it even easier.
Infographic job description
What is it?
An infographic job description is a collection of imagery, charts, and text that gives an easy-to-digest overview of your open role versus a text heavy job description. With just a limited amount of time to strike a chord with candidates, infographics can grab the attention of a prospective employee.
Why use it?
Many organizations are beginning to see the value in making their job descriptions more interesting. Did you know that 65% of people are visual learners? By offering a more visual approach to your job description, you might see more people engage.
Plus with an ever-increasing number of candidates searching for their next career move on mobile, infographics are perfect for consuming on mobile and tablets. Like video job descriptions, they’re also easy to share across your social media channels. Just make sure to keep it fun and focus on the things that are most likely to resonate with your ideal candidate.
See an example
Infographic job post for a financial consultant
How to use it?
There are a number of tools available which allow you to create your own infographics in a style that fits your company’s brand, such as easel.ly or piktochart. The format works best to convey a lot of information in a highly visual and fun way. You can highlight the requirements, desired skills Here are some great examples to get you started.
Comic strip job description
What is it?
A cartoonist job description is a creative way to illustrate the role you are advertising. It allows you to express with images and text the requirements for the role in a playful way.
Why use it?
A comic strip job description can not only be used as the initial hook to catch a candidate’s attention, but also as an informal FAQ section to cover topics that those reading the description might typically ask about.
See an example
Comic strip job offer for a Software developer
How to use it?
The comic strip job desciption should be used as a descriptive element of your job post. It is a nice way to showcase your company culture or illustrate the type of personality you are looking for. It should outline some specifities and tell a story.
Interactive quiz job description
What is it?
A Buzzfeed-style interactive quiz is an innovative way to present the duties and responsibilities of your open role in a way that will cut through the noise and help suss out unqualified candidates.
Why use it?
Using a quiz can help candidates self-assess in an interactive way if they have the qualifications or skills needed for the role. If it is possible to capture the results of the quiz in the backend, it can allow recruiters or hiring managers to indentify and reach out to the candidates who have the reached the required criteria for the open role, and potentially cut out the need for a phone-screening interview stage.
See an example
Career path quiz for Newlook
How to use it?
Make the quiz simple and short so the prospect doesnt disengage with your offer. You can not only use it to orient the candidate but also as a tool of preselection based on your values and requirements.
Pro tip:
If your role requires more technical experience, look to include technical questions to ensure that you only hear from the most-suited candidates.
Your guide to job descriptions / Creative job description formats
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