Guiding Principles

These are the principles and beliefs that have shaped the thinking that underpins mitchs.ai

1. A job advert is not a job description

They are 2 different pieces of content.

They have 2 distinct purposes.

They are used at 2 different stages of the hiring process.

Around 80-90% of the target candidate audience for any perm job are likely to be employed, so it is unlikely someone who doesn’t need another job will have enough motivation to read a 700 word job description that mostly only speaks about what the company wants.

But they might read a job advert that speaks about what they might want.

That’s what all forms of direct response advertising are – speaking to your audience’s wants and needs.

A description informs, an advert persuades.

2. A job advert can take many forms

And it can be delivered via email, InMail, a social post or even a video.

Posting a job is a ‘one-to-many’ channel and as such, delivers what it wants to say all at once. The ad should be enough to make the target candidate want to share their CV, or at worst, ask for more information.

Emails and InMails are ‘one-to-one’ channels and so need to deliver their message in stages, rather than all at once. They are ‘interruptive’ channels and so need to move at a pace the target candidate is comfortable with. This will often require 2 to 4 emails or InMails before they’re ready to share their CV or have a conversation.

Both job adverts and direct messaging have the same objective – to generate interested candidates.

If the job advert was a 400m race, the outreach message would be the 100m relay.

3. A job advert should be easy to read

For many perm jobs, that means keeping the word count under 400. It just has to be long enough to give the reader what they most want to know at this very early stage of the hiring process.

It also means using short sentences, regular paragraph breaks (or white space) and simple words – the kinds of words you’d typically use if you were having a coffee with them.

The first objective of a job ad is that the right people read it from start to finish. These people often turn out to be the best candidates.

4. A job advert should get the right people interested

To get people interested you need to make it about them.

Specifically, how the job might be better than the one they’re in or the others they’re applying for. A job advert will increase that interest by telling the reader the minimum experience (or knowledge) they’d need to be capable of doing the job.

In the age of ghosting, listing too many requirements that aren’t essential, just deters the right people.

A job advert only has to find one customer.

And sometimes, the difference between a successful and unsuccessful job ad is just one sentence.

5. A job advert makes it easy for the right people to respond

The more response options a job advert gives, the more likely it will attract those 2 or 3 other candidates who might not have responded if sending their up-to-date CV was the only way of them finding out more.

A great job advert that undoes itself with a bad CTA (call to action) is a tragedy in my world.

What you put in your CTA will need to change depending on the hosting platform and the target audience.

If the job is historically tricky to fill, giving people more response options can only be a good thing. 

6. A job advert is part of a process

Its purpose is to generate curiosity and/or interest. That’s all.

Nobody ever knew they wanted a particular job just by reading an ad. Not even one of mine.

All a job advert can do is make people want to know more. It’s a lead generator. Without leads (aka “candidates”) there is no recruiting. So if enough of the right candidates are entering the top of the funnel, it becomes statistically more likely the job will be filled quickly.

If you try to give the reader everything there is to know about the role in the ad, it becomes too long and less readable. People not reading the job ad is where most of those wildly inappropriate applications come from.

7. The job advert is the trailer

It’s there to encourage the right people to want to see the film. The film is everything that happens afterwards.

Thank you for reading this.

If you disagree with any of it, my AI agent might not be for you. But you can try it out for free to know for sure.