Why do you post a job description and expect it to behave like a job advert?
Posted by Mitch on 9th May 2023
The answer to this question is multifaceted – like most answers to most questions.
The two broadest categories of answer are probably laziness and ignorance.
Laziness because the recruiter is overworked and can barely process all their vacancies alongside all their other responsibilities. Or it could be that they don’t care and are playing the numbers game. Or that they work for a large well-known company and expect that to be what candidates find most attractive about their jobs. They might even think that they shouldn’t have to sell their jobs and that what most potential canbdidates want is lots of information about the company and the job responsibilities.
Ignorance because they don’t know any better. They don’t know anything about marketing or sales. Basically, they don’t see any difference between a job advert and a job description and see them as interchangeable. That one means the other. To take it to the extreme conclusion, they think ‘advert’ and ‘description’ are synonyms.
There are many ways of defining the difference between a job advert and a job description. The most obvious one is that an advert ‘sells’ and a description ‘tells’.
Fundamentally, the purpose of the job advert is to make potential candidates to want to read the job description.
Most people need a good reason to actually read a job description.