7 Ways to optimise your job ads to find perfect candidates

7 Ways to optimise your job ads to find perfect candidates

 

Are you looking for multilingual candidates, especially German, Dutch or Scandinavian speakers? Well so is everyone else! Thanks to our experience at Europe Language Jobs, we have compiled a list of our top 7 tips to attract those tough candidates.

 

1. Write a standout title for your job offers

It is a candidate-driven market; maybe it feels like searching for a needle in a haystack. The competition is high and candidates can choose between hundreds of vacancies. Write a title that attracts immediate attention to your job offer.

How? Choose a clear and complete title which contains:

Level (junior / senior) + sector / industry + description of the work being performed + location (city) + extra’s (e.g. salary, atmosphere, brand, salary, relocation package).

Here are some examples of well writen job titles: 

“Technical Service Representative with German in Maastricht”
“Junior HR Administration Specialist with Swedish”
“Contact Center Quality Specialist (m/f), Netherlands”

Be aware that the job title should reflect the work that the candidate will do and the organization's culture.

 

2. Provide a clear and complete job description

  • Do not write general job offers (e.g. customer service roles in Ireland)
  • Write your offer in English.  Most of the searches done by candidates are English terms. If your offer doesn´t have those keywords it will not appear on the search.
  •  Give an overview of the: company + department & supervisor + key responsibilities + skills & qualifications + type of employment + salary range and benefits in your job description.
  • Add languages level + sector + skills + years of experience. (e.g. sales, 3 years of experience, proficient Swedish) to your offer. It will help to position your offer in searches and in jobs matches that will appear on candidates’ personal dashboards.
  • Embody the Company's Personality.Candidates value the type of work enviroment they’re looking to enter, so all the information you can provide about the company and work space can be very valuable for the applicants. 
  • Be transparent.
  • Dont include contact details on the description of the offers. There is a field specialised for the contact email of the recruiter managing the position.  

 

3. Consider what it is the best time to launch your offer. 

  • The times with more traffic on our page are weekdays from 12:00 to 16:00 CET.
  • Sometimes publishing when no other company is publishing could also work well, mainly because your offers will compete with less companies. For example, some companies try very early on Monday mornings or Friday afternoon. 
  • Post your offers on different days / times; find out what works best for you!
  • Do you have several vacancies? Do not publish all of them at the same time. Spread it over several days; the companies and vacancies on the top of the job list have the best results.
  • When you have new offers, upload them on the site and your company will become a trusted source of job offers. That will help you increase your company’s visibility on the site. 

 

4. Take advantage of language settings

Languages are the main focus of Europe Language Jobs and it’s possibly the most important field when writing an offer. We need to take into account the level of the languages that we want the candidates to have. Once we have set the level we can decide if it’s a mandatory language level or not.   

If you select them as “mandatory”, this only allows candidates who speak the mandatory languages (at the desired level) to apply.

We always advise to set the main language of the offer as mandatory, but be aware; two mandatory languages means that only candidates who speak both languages can apply!

When you have for example a vacancy for a Norwegian mother tongue OR a Danish mother tongue speaker do not use mandatory for both languages. A solution is to publish two vacancies.

 

5. Be realistic

These days, there are more companies which are publishing in online job boards, and more and more they are choosing to use paid premium features. There is more competition!

Besides that; we all know that it is much harder to find Dutch, German and Scandinavian candidates. So start your search on time and consider premium features to improve visibility of the most demanded positions. 

Sometimes a challenge is whether candidates are willing to relocate or not. You may want to include special relocation packs to motivated them to consider the position. Sometimes it’s also possible to find an expat, someone who is already living in the country where the position is based.

Also, take care to advertise a position that has reasonable demands; it is unreasonable to expect anyone with 4 years of experience to apply for an internship, for example. Equally, entry level positions should welcome graduates with no experience, and not demand an unrealistic background of experience.

 

6. Use premium features

With premium (or paid) features you will reach attention of more candidates and you will immediately get better results. On the whole, this will include a range of  visibility (refresh / republish and pinned offers) and usability (CV to mail) tools. They will save you time!

Use killer (or filtering) questions; they will filter the candidates and make your life much easier from the start of your selections process!

Are you in an urgent need? A mailshot to matching candidates from the database could be a solution. Contact us if you need to find a candidate quickly, we will create a template and send the mailing for you. 

Did you know that we have more than 70.000 followers on Social Media? We can broadcast your offers on our Social Media channels to reach a wider audience.

As you see there are many different possibilities, our team will always be available to help you find the best solution for your recruitment needs so feel free to contact us. 

 

7. Be active and share your feedback

Finding the right candidate is not an easy process and it takes time and effort. We recomend that you check your vacancies from time to time and that you review new applications everyday, a canddiate is more likely to be hired if contacted soon after applying to the job. 

Make sure you refresh your offers every 7 days so they achieve better visibility. Here you have a chance to improve the vacancy if necessary. 

Our team is at your disposal so do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions you may have. 

In Europe Language Jobs we are constantly improving our site. We take feedback very seriously and a company’s opinions will always be taken into account. So please share your experience of our page with us; what services you are missing or you would like to have and in general how we can improve your experience. You can email us at: [email protected]