I Learned to Write Better Job Ads - Here's How. Binder #018 - Recruiting/Hiring

In January 2025, I posted a new job position available to our pavement company on Indeed. The position was labeled "Sales Representative."

I began hiring my first sales rep in late 2022, using Indeed. So, when I posted this job advertisement, I used a job description similar to the one in the previous postings.

However, this job posting was written slightly differently from the previous ones. This time, I knew I needed a really proficient outside sales rep. Someone who could drive new business opportunities, pound the pavement looking for new customers, not fear rejection, be autonomous, and not be risk-averse.

I felt ready to find this sales assassin.

I posted the ad.

I ran it for 4 weeks.

And for some reason, I couldn't find any great candidates.

I conducted some pre-screening calls on the phone, but no one jumped out to me as a successful candidate. I talked to all sorts of people - inside sales reps, retail salespeople, business owners, and even some finance people - but no one "felt" like they would be the right fit.

When something doesn't work how I want it to, I often ask someone smarter than me what the heck I should do.

That person was Eric Guy, director of education at Top Contractor School. His company, Center for Victory, specializes in talent recruiting and retention.

He gave me one suggestion that provided immediate value. I acted on it right away.

What was it?

I cut the job ad from 5,200 to 2,100 words - about 60% fewer words in the posting.

Why Less Was More in my Job Ad

Why did he implore me to do this?

In short, because the ideal candidate for the position we wanted had no interest in reading 5,200 words of job ads. 

They are new business hunters. They want short, concise, bullet-point style communication. They aren't interested in novels about how the job is. They just want to go sell their face off.

This sharp cut in the writing of the job ad taught me a key lesson. Our job advertisements should be tailored to match the candidate - and the personality type - of the person you want for the role.

In the past, I have taught my 1-on-1 clients to always write detailed, meaningful job postings. There are still great study-backed reasons for this. For example, according to Gallup Research, candidates are more likely to apply for a job if they feel a perceived fit with the company and the position. The best way to ensure they know if they will fit in a role is to be very specific when describing the job in the advertisement.

This was not the case for my outside sales rep position.

Writing more words in the job posting damaged my chances of finding my outside sales rep. Eric helped me to see this by pairing my job posting with Predictive Index Behavioral Assessments and a personalized Job Target Report, which were built to find the exact personality fit that would be best in the role for our company.

As it turns out, the Job Target Report showed that the right person in our outside sales rep role would be someone who requires little information to make decisions - decisions like applying for a new job. The kind of person who doesn't like to be burdened with long, monotonous writing. (They probably aren't reading this newsletter, either!)

This is a key lesson for our job postings. Write it for the ideal person we want. If you need help understanding who that person is, reach out to me, and I can connect you to people who can help!