Innovation in Job Advertisements

Given the best practices of job advertisements, many job ads became pretty uniform. Hence, it is quite refreshing when some HR departments act creatively to stand out from the crowd. 

In this post, I’d like to point out seven examples, five from Poland and two from Germany.

1.      Aplikom intends to motivate jobseekers to apply with inviting them to read their employees’ reviews of work at Aplikom.

2.      Corresponding to employee satisfaction, Atena added a sentence “90% of employees are satisfied with their work at Atena”.

3.      MobileMS that looks for sales people, listed the remuneration structure candidates can expect along with the total salary to be earned after 3, 6, and 12 months. The employer also shares their annual revenues so that candidates can better understand their income potential.

4.      On the opposite, Aviva’s requirements for a complete application are scary. Intern candidates are required to submit a photo, date of birth and marital status. Notably, the employer also provides an option to apply without those details by using their contact form.

 

5.      Instead, Edelight’s idea to attract candidates was to ask for their competency level at football table. Moreover, Edelight uses the job advert to cross-promote themselves as shopping destination. They wrote “By the way, you can find the right kind of attire for the job interview here: www.edelight.de/mode”.

6.      Switalski & Synowie’s attracted my attention, because they thank their applicants for submitting their application upfront.

7.      Flare Games job ad disconnects with best practices altogether. First, job duties are incorporated into the list of requirements. Second, no capital letters are used in the text. Third, text applies mathematical formula to define the talent wanted and geographic latitude and longitude of company’s headquarters. Finally, the job ad is enriched with a QR Code.

Screening interviews done by interns and candidate experience

For some time now, companies recruiting interns has promised those students meaningful projects and the opportunity to assume responsibility. Ever since, brewing coffee has been labeled as the most ungrateful intern’s task ever and many companies, MNC and start-up alike, will address brewing coffee or actually lack thereof in their job adverts. See e.g. the one below by McKinsey.

Indeed, short of staff start-ups tend to entrust interns with quite a bit. One such task is interviewing candidates. The learning curve is steep and the responsibility huge. Then, interns can influence candidate experience greatly.

To ensure a positive candidate experience, HR department should not only train the interns in interviewing skills but also design the interview sequences right and manage candidate expectations appropriately. In particular, some techniques include:

* Plan the interview as a three stage process, interview questions asked by employer, questions asked by candidate and outline of the recruitment process.

* Prepare the list of frequently asked questions by candidates and answers and train the interns in answering them

* Encourage interns to inform you of new questions asked by candidates and consult with you on the best answers

* Continuously help interns improve their interviewing skills

* Select the right interns to do the job

Last but not least, leaders should keep in mind, that no matter how smart and well trained the interns are, they will be hardly able to engage in a discussion with the candidate. As a result, most intern screening interviews are one way questionings. Experienced staff may perceive them as unprofessional and may not feel appreciated accordingly as one recent candidate at Fab shared on kununu.