London, 10th January 2003

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Quick hit suggestions to dramatically improve the
effectiveness of your advertising
campaigns Tony Restell Director,
Top-Consultant.com
London, 10th January 2003
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Presentation Overview
1. Advertising rules writing good
adverts Finding the right place to advertise is
one half of the challenge of devising a
successful recruitment campaign. But anyone can
pay to advertise in the right places. The killer
success factor for your company is writing
adverts that generate five times the returns of
your competitors ads.

• 2. Avoiding the pitfalls of internet recruiting
• Some basics about online applicants
• Do your homework how do candidates search on
  your chosen website?

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The advertising checklist have you written a
killer ad?
Finding the right place to advertise is one half
of the challenge of devising a successful
recruitment campaign. But anyone can pay to
advertise in the right places. The killer success
factor for your company is writing adverts that
generate five times the returns of your
competitors ads Rule 1 Your headline is the
single biggest influencer on the performance of
your ad. gtgtgt Have you written a killer
headline? Rule 2 Your first goal is to sell
the candidate on wanting the job gtgtgt Does the
first paragraph of your ad make good candidates
want to apply? Rule 3 Be specific but
selective about must-haves gtgtgt Have you
restricted must-haves to half-a-dozen objective
requirements? Rule 4 Test, Learn, Test gtgtgt
Are you using tried and tested formulae from
previous campaigns, and monitoring the results of
each campaign?
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Rule 1 Your headline is the single biggest
influencer on the performance of your ad. gtgtgt
Have you written a killer headline?
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Live case study You are looking for a new job in
HR which of these jobs would you click to read
first ?
1. HR Manager excellent remunerationWest London 2. Fast-Track your career Fast-growing and highly profitable consultancy needs an experiencedHR Manager 3. HR Manager Our atmosphere is fun, friendly and rewarding. If you are looking for a change from the big firms, read on
4. Experienced HR Professional Are you looking for a new challenge? Can you help us realise our ambition of recruiting 30 consultants this year? 5. HR Manager Must have prior experience of working within consulting and at least 3 years professional experience 6. HR Manager We offer flexible working hours and encourage team members to strike the right work-life balance
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The purpose of a headline is to pick out people
you can interest and who are of interest to you
Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do
with advertising until he has read this book at
least 7 times David Ogilvy Scientific
Advertising, by Claude Hopkins download from
www.claudehopkins.com
Some observations on headlines Headlines on ads
are like headlines on news items. Nobody reads a
whole newspaper. We pick out what we wish to read
by headlines. The purpose of a headline is to
pick out people you can interest and who are of
interest to you. Spend far more time on
headlines than on writing (the full ad copy). For
the entire return from an ad depends on
attracting the right sort of readers. It is not
uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply
returns five or ten times over.
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Rule 2 Your first goal is to sell the candidate
on wanting the job gtgtgt Does the first paragraph
of your ad make good candidates want to apply?
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Your first goal is to sell the candidate on
wanting the job

• FACT
• The majority of candidates skim-read adverts and
  will only read in full the couple of adverts that
  have most excited them
• DO
• Write your first paragraph specifically with the
  aim of exciting the ideal candidate and making
  them want to read ongtgtgt Think If my ideal
  candidate were on the phone to me now, what would
  be some of the first things I would want to say
  to make them want to apply?
• Use emotive language that appeals to what your
  ideal candidates aspire to be / have (unsurpassed
  reputation, fast-track opportunity, enviable
  record, challenging assignments, equity
  participation)
• Emphasise how genuine the opportunity is or how
  urgently the position needs to be filled plus how
  many people you are hiring if it is more than one

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Your first goal is to sell the candidate on
wanting the job

• FACT
• The majority of candidates skim-read adverts and
  will only read in full the couple of adverts that
  have most excited them
• DO NOT
• Allow your advert to be hijacked by the
  marketing department and especially not the
  opening paragraphgtgtgt If you are a large firm,
  candidates will already have a strong opinion of
  your organisation that can only be changed by a
  face-to-face meeting if you are a small firm you
  need only establish that you are successful
  meeting your consultants and visiting your office
  will convince them about the strength of your
  firm. Paragraphs of claims and statistics will
  not.
• In summary appeal to what the candidate wants to
  hear dont simply convey your corporate mantra
  to the market

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Rule 3 Be specific but selective about
must-haves gtgtgt Have you restricted
must-haves to half-a-dozen objective
requirements?
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Be specific but selective about must-haves

• Your objective in stating requirements /
  must-haves is twofold
• To solidify in the minds of your ideal candidate
  that the role is perfect for them so that they
  want to apply
• To dissuade inappropriate candidates from
  applying
• Suggestions
• Do not state a mission impossible list of dozens
  of requirements unless you really will not
  consider candidates without these facets
• gtgt Strong candidates may be put off if they feel
  they do not meet all your requirements
• gtgt Weak candidates will assume this is just a
  wish-list and that you will never find this
  person. If they can meet some of the requirements
  they will still apply.
• Do state 5-6 critical objective requirements

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Rule 4 Test, Learn, Test gtgtgt Are you using
tried and tested formulae from previous
campaigns, and monitoring the results of each
campaign?
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Test, Learn, Test
Choosing your advertising medium Q When you saw
the earlier survey results showing the
effectiveness of different newspapers, how many
of you already knew from your own experiences
that the Times was the best performing newspaper?
You ALREADY employ test, learn, test to some
degree What you have just indicated is that most
people in the room track and measure the
effectiveness of the media they are using. When
you next run a recruitment campaign, you are
inclined to spend your budget with media that
have worked for you in the past or for which you
have received strong recommendations. You already
spend your advertising budget in a somewhat
scientific way
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Test, Learn, Test
Writing your advertising copy As writing a
powerful advert is as important as choosing the
best place to advertise, you should keep on file
past examples of successful and unsuccessful ads,
as templates for future adverts. But now there
is a new weapon you should use electronic
media your own website and any jobsites you use
to experiment with variants of your adverts and
track which messages are most powerful.

Almost any question can be answered
cheaply, quickly and finally by a test campaign.
And thats the way to answer them not by
arguments around a table Claude Hopkins
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There are 2 key success factors in producing a
successful recruitment advertising campaign
Choosing the right advertising media and
writing a powerful recruitment advert that
maximises the return on this spend

Take the Top-Consultant
Challenge Would you like to maximise the returns
from your next recruitment advertising
spend? gtgtgt We believe passionately that our team
can suggest tweaks to your adverts that will
dramatically increase the number of shortlist
candidates you generate from your next
recruitment campaign. Wherever you plan to
advertise your next consultancy requirement, send
your advert to our team for a FREE
evaluation. Simply email your advertisement to
enquiries_at_top-consultant.com or to me
personallytony.restell_at_top-consultant.com
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Avoiding the pitfalls of internet recruiting gtgtgt
Some basics about online applicants
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Some basics about online applicants
Candidates tend to research online jobs during
the working week.
. and will only spend a few minutes in total
reviewing opportunities on a jobsite
-gt One of your biggest challenges is therefore to
grab a good candidates attention within seconds
of them seeing your advert, hence the importance
of headlines selling the role
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Avoiding the pitfalls of internet recruiting gtgtgt
Do your homework how do candidates search on
your chosen website?
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Do your homework how do candidates search on
your chosen website?

• In terms of how search results are displayed,
  there are 3 main types of jobsite, and depending
  which you are using your advert needs to be
  optimised in a different way
• Premium-listing sites
• full-listings site (eg. Top-Consultant,
  Goldjobs)
• Mass-market sites
• category-listing sites (Monster, Totaljobs)
• keyword-search sites (Jobserve, GoJobsite)
• 
  
• The 2 key things to understand about mass-market
  sites
• 1. How do you get a top listing in the search
  results?
• 2. How long can you expect to maintain a top
  listing?

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Mass-market sites Category listing sites
Sites such as Monster and Totaljobs encourage
candidates primarily to search for jobs in a
particular category (eg. consulting services on
Monster) 1. How do you get a top listing in the
search results? gtgtgt Unless candidates add keyword
searches to the category search the results tend
to be displayed in date order (so submit an ad
optimised for its appeal to candidates) 2. How
long can you expect to maintain a top
listing? gtgtgt Take a look at the site. The more
jobs they are able to win, the more quickly your
ad will get pushed down the search
results. Implications The number of responses
generated by this type of site will tail-off
dramatically. You can certainly get good results
but there is no time to experiment with rewording
your ad text
CVsperday
Time
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Mass-market sites Category listing sites An
example Search of consulting services jobs on
Monster
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Search of consulting jobs on Monster
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Search for CRM Consultant - Jobserve
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Mass-market sites keyword-search sites
Sites such as Jobserve and GoJobsite encourage
keyword searching so a candidate searches much
as they might do on a search engine like Google
(eg. CRM Consultant) 1. How do you get a top
listing in the search results? gtgtgt To be
displayed in search results, your ad must contain
the keywords that a candidate is searching for
(eg. CRM Consultant), and very often contain
them more than once (each site has its own search
results formula). Results are often displayed in
order of relevancy, though candidates can
sometimes specify to see them in date order 2.
How long can you expect to maintain a top
listing? gtgtgt If the site results are ordered by
relevancy, your job will not drop down the
listings so quickly. If results can be displayed
in date order you will get less response over
time Implications 1. You MUST understand how
the sites search formula works and modify your
ad text so that it appears high in the search
results. Otherwise you have a great ad that
no-one sees. 2. You should create a list of
search terms to target and then check with the
jobsite how many searches are conducted for each
of the search terms otherwise you may end up
optimising your job for a search term that is
very rarely entered
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Mass-market sites Keyword-search sites An
example Search for CRM Consultant - Jobserve
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