To Land the Best Talent, Make Your Best Pitch
Who doesn’t want the sharpest minds and brightest personalities working for their company? So why are so many job postings written in the dullest fashion, apparently from the dimmest corner of the office?
We preach to our clients (in a very nice way) about the value of a good job posting. Of course you want the best candidates, so invest some quality time in getting the word out about your opening. Too often a dry job description gets posted with just a little about the company, a list of job requirements and a few benefits listed at the bottom.
We agree with top recruiters who say there’s a difference between a job posting and a job description. A job posting (or job ad) should be seen more as a marketing piece.
This is the place where you should be selling your company as an amazing place to work, and letting applicants know the critical and challenging role they will be playing at an exciting time.
Job postings should be interesting, inspiring, and attractive, allowing the applicant to imagine the skills they can offer to help the company meet their goals. Then a more traditional job description can be provided after your applicant pool has been narrowed down.
We recently upped our job-posting game. Here’s a BEFORE from 2017 and an AFTER that helped us find a terrific new Account Director earlier this year:
From 2017:
ACCOUNT DIRECTOR
JOB DESCRIPTION
The Account Director is responsible for daily contact between the agency and one or more client accounts. The account director interfaces with various agency departments to move projects through on behalf of the client. This includes meeting with the creative team concerning creative issues and input, streamlining media issue, publicity and newsmaking, directly dealing with interactive projects and online media, communicating with the traffic manager concerning scheduling and timing.
Account directors have major input in developing strategic marketing plans for their clients. After plans are developed and presented to clients, the account director is responsible for carrying out the plan on a daily basis.
This account director position requires knowledge and experience in online and digital strategies with emphasis on content development and management.
Duties: etc., etc. A string of 10 bullets follows.
You get the idea. Dry. Boring. Unimaginative. Ho hum. No wonder applications were sparse.
Here’s the full version of our most recent job posting. Like night and day, and it paid off big time with great applicants seeking a great job.
ACCOUNT DIRECTOR
JOB SUMMARY
The Account Director is responsible for building strong, rewarding relationships with Kinetic clients, helping them develop a strategic vision and meet ambitious goals through exceptional marketing plans. You will be the primary point of contact for these valuable partners, maintaining regular communication to identify long- and short-term projects, outline realistic project schedules and deliver amazing results.
This Account Director knows business. You understand how business works and how to successfully market businesses representing many industries. Not only will you have the expertise to provide exceptional service for each client, you will display collaborative skills in working with Kinetic’s departments to guide projects to completion. This includes engaging with our creative team of writers and graphic artists, project managers and business manager.
You lead by example. You eagerly participate in brainstorming, providing creative input, streamlining media issues, handling publicity, directly dealing with interactive projects and online media, and communicating with project managers and our business manager concerning scheduling and timing.
You will be an innovator in developing out-of-the-box strategic marketing plans for clients. After plans are developed, presented and approved, you will confidently direct projects on a daily basis.
What You Will Do
- Collaborate regularly with creative team members and project managers to coordinate efforts for our clients
- Prepare winning presentations for clients, display strong communication skills, and exhibit an ability to bring strategic and tactical expertise to every project
- Support Kinetic team members in their work for clients and with each other
- Learn all you can about your clients’ brand, products, services and past marketing efforts
- Assist in preparing client invoices, proposals, and marketing/media/public relations plans
- Stay on top of all client communications, respond in timely fashion to calls, and emails, and anticipate client needs for updates and new information
- Review and approve creative materials, copy, layouts, and production art, and coordinate client approval of these
- Coordinate project timing and budgets with all colleagues involved
- Actively seek additional projects and new business from client contacts
- Stay apprised of the progress of projects through project managers or creative team members
- Display experience and understanding of common customer relationship management systems (CRMs), building campaigns, and behavioral marketing
- Build email-campaign strategies for clients and analyze email analytics to improve performance
Qualifications and Skills
This Account Director position requires knowledge and experience in online and digital strategies with an emphasis on content development and management. Bachelor’s degree with 3-5 years of experience in marketing and public relations is preferred.
Other essential qualities:
- You lead by example and have delivered strong strategic and creative results for clients.
- You’ve experienced success in managing major accounts and understand the responsibility that role carries.
- You have supervised the work of others and helped foster a culture of collaborative excellence. You know how to coach and mentor colleagues as they develop their skills.
- You are a people person, like to work within a team, and enjoy the back-and-forth challenges of the creative process.
Please answer the following questions on your resume:
- What CRM systems have you worked with?
- What email service providers (ESP) have you worked with?
When You Join Our Agency
Members of Kinetic’s high-energy team enjoy:
- Competitive salary commensurate with experience
- Paid medical insurance with access to health savings account
- Dental, vision insurance assistance
- Paid vacation and holidays
- Career development support
- Comfortable offices in the heart of downtown Billings
- Colleagues motivated to do great things for clients
Do you need some coaching to write job postings that attract the best candidates?
