For the next few months my column will be devoted to the secrets and nuances of sourcing top employees using the mainstream recruiting tools like Monster, Careerbuilder, Zoom info, Linked-in and a whole host of other tools designed for high volume sourcing. I'll be experimenting with several new ideas and reporting on their success. These tools are the bread and butter for corporate recruiters with lots of requisitions and limited time. If you want to be part of our formal sourcing study or want to contribute some of your own lessons learned using these tools, just drop me a quick email ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and we'll gladly include your experiences in our research. In the meantime...

The secret to great internet sourcing is marketing and the first rule of marketing is to know your target audience. Unfortunately most job board advertising is targeted towards the wrong audience, has the wrong positioning and focuses on people who desperately need a job. However, there is an audience of great people on the internet who have good jobs, perform well in those jobs and who only look occasionally. We call this group "Less Active Candidates." Top employees are overrepresented in this group and these people think fundamentally differently than the thousands of active candidates who desperately need a job. Below are a few realities about Less Active Candidates:

1. They only look when they get frustrated with their job and they only look for a short period of time -- maybe only one or two hours on a particularly bad day at work.
2. They won't jump through big hoops to apply for a position.
3. They will only consider something if it represents a real opportunity including some significant job stretch and a better career opportunity.
4. They are unlikely to have an updated resume
5. They already have a decent job - but sometimes they get just frustrated enough to see what's out there.

The first rule of job board advertising is simply that every ad should be targeted toward this group of potential candidates. Below are three key secrets that will help you tap into this valuable source of good candidates:

Three Secrets to High Impact Advertising

1. Get rid of boring job titles. You have five seconds or less to attract a potential candidate's attention on a job board and the only tool you have to do it is the title you post online. Titles should stand out. It's not an accident that your eye is attracted to particular products at the grocery store. Companies pay big dollars to place their product at just the right spot on the shelf (eye level). They pay even bigger money to ensure their packaging pops out from the others. The same principle applies to job titles on job boards. A simple Monster search for sales positions in Los Angeles returns over 250 sales possibilities. The vast majority have the same title Sales - Account Manager, Sales manager, Regional Sales Manager. Nothing stands out! To make them stand out you should make them longer than other titles on the page, include some humor, add a tagline, address your target audience. Over the years we and our clients have used some really crazy titles including:

• Are you a Desperate House Wife - to recruit afternoon tellers to a local bank
• This CSR job is for the DOGS - Customer Service Manager for a Dog food company
• Win the Office Manager position!!!!
• Sales Coordinator Extraordinaire

The only purpose of your title is get people to click and learn more about your job. Creative titles help your ad standout and position your company in a whole different light.

2. Compelling ad copy. This is your packaging. If you get your prospect to click on your creative title, you then have another 10-15 seconds to hook that candidate into learning more and reading your entire ad. The first two or three sentences must be compelling and must contain a reason to read on. Don't let technology dictate how your ad gets posted! Many applicant tracking systems automatically post the job requisition number, the title and whole bunch of irrelevant information right at the top of the ad. Candidates have to read 10-15 lines before you get any real information about the job. Less active candidates most often move on to the next opportunity because there was nothing interesting.

Don't make the mistake that 90% of all companies make when posting a job - most corporate recruiters just simply post the requisition description. This is the kiss of death. Most job requisitions aren't compelling, don't contain real information about the job and are too focused on requirements. Your ad should be a marketing document. It's your one-minute elevator pitch on what makes this a great opportunity. If you are not creative, take your best marketing person to lunch and ask for help in writing just one compelling paragraph about the job itself. Focus the copy on three things, what the person will do on the job, what they will learn and what they will become. This is the secret to great ad writing.

3. Know how people search for your jobs. A great title and compelling copy won't produce outstanding candidates unless recruiters make it easy to find the job. Top recruiters go one step further and take the time to understand how people look for jobs. They ask candidates how they found the position, they pretend they are candidates looking for a job in their target area and try to find their position using the typical search tools. They understand how to use keywords and search terms to maximize their exposure. They also know that a job posted on CareerBuilder and Monster is automatically picked up by a host of job aggregators like Indeed.com. Each job search engine has its own methodology for deciding how to prioritize positions. Monster and CareerBuilder are constantly improving changing their technology to ensure that the most relevant jobs are presented based on the candidate's search criteria. It takes a little experimentation to fine tune your posting, but the small investment in time is definitely worth it. Here's the standard: If your job posting doesn't come up in the top 5-10 listing for that position category, it's unlikely you are going to attract less active candidates. Active people, those candidates that need a job will search boring job ads all day long, but less active candidates won't go through the trouble. Positioning your ad above the first fold where the candidate doesn't have to scroll down is critical.

These are just a few suggestions for quick improvement to online job advertising. Over the next few months, we'll be conducting some in-depth research sharing more ideas about these important recruiting tools. If you want to get involved, drop me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I'll make sure to include you in the study. In the meantime, Happy Recruiting!