Always put a salary on a job ad

One of the great annoyances of online recruiters when they post jobs on job boards is candidate spam. That is, too many irrelevant candidates apply for the job. As a recruiter it can be truly baffling as to why so many poor candidates have applied for your job. Didn’t they read the job ad? It was for a ‘personnel assistant’ not a ‘personal assistant.’ It requires fluency in English. And permission to work in the UK.

In many ways, the bizarre nature of poor candidates makes one wonder sometimes how it is we have a functioning economy at all. Who hires these people?

Yes, it can downright irritating to have irrelevant people applying for your job. But, on occasion it is good to step back and look at things from the candidate’s point of view. Did you do everything you could do to let candidates screen themselves out?

Notice I said “let candidates screen themselves out.” You can do a lot to let candidates screen themselves out. Applying for jobs takes time. It really does. And the majority of candidates don’t really want to  apply for a job if they don’t think they are suitable. It’s a waste of time for them. But are you doing everything let them judge their suitability.

One of the key ways of letting candidates judge their suitability is by providing a salary on the job ad. And here, alas, is where so many employer recruiters fall down. Some employers simply refuse to put salaries on their job ads. How can a candidate really know what an employer is looking for if the employer won’t give them an idea of the level of person you are looking for?

There is a world of difference between a Business Development Manager on £35K OTE , and one on £35K basic plus 10% team bonus, and one on £60K plus bonus. You see the point? It’s the same job title describing very different jobs. Let the candidate see that. Give them a salary.

Check out our article ‘Salary and salary ranges on jobs.’