A great job ad will attract twice as many A-listers as a boring one.
Here's how to write one - even when you don't have much time or brainpower.

(You don't have to get ^this^ creative with your job ads.  But you might want to look at these for inspiration.)

In the past few years, we've done a number of internal studies, and they've all demonstrated the same thing:  Spending a little time and effort on writing a more creative, original and compelling job ad not only increases the number of responses we get, it also increases the number of responses we get from A-list candidates, while reducing the time-to-hire.

(It especially increases the number of responses we get from A-list passive candidates.  Why?  Because passive candidates need extra incentive to apply for a new job, and while they aren't tempted by an 'average' job ad, they are often tempted by a a more interesting job ad which is forwarded to them or which they come across on social media. They assume that any company which takes the time to write an interesting job ad is probably a more interesting - and fun - place to work on a daily basis.  So that hour or two you spend on a great job ad can save you several hours of direct sourcing.)

But what do you do when you don't have an extra couple of hours to craft the perfect job ad?

I know - you've already had to write 9 job ads today, you've got 23 open requisitions on your plate, the marketing department has all gone home for the weekend, and, after all, you're not a professional copywriter. You're not Seth Godin, and you don't have hours to spend on writing a job ad. So what do you do?

Luckily there are few handy tricks you can use to make your job ads more compelling, without it sucking up the entire afternoon or all your brainpower.  Here's what to do.

5 ways to create a compelling job post, fast

1.  Focus on the headline

Whether it's an online advertisement, a billboard, or a job posting, the headline is the single biggest deciding factor in grabbing the reader's attention.  So if you can only do one thing, write a better headline.

How?  Most of the time, it's as easy as adding a feature or benefit to the standard job title (which is what most people use as a 'headline'), plus maybe an adjective.  So instead of 'Senior Marketing Mgr', you end up with 'Senior Marketing Manager - 5 weeks vacation + fantastic company!' Or if you wanted to get a little extra creative, you could try 'WANTED: Senior Marketing Manager who likes to work smarter!'

Even if you don't change anything else about the job post, a headline like that will generate more readers.

2.  Create a standard opening paragraph that you can use for almost all job ads

Once you've captured people's attention with your headline, you've got about 5 seconds to retain their interest with an opening paragraph that makes them think, "Hhmm, this is the kind of company I'd like to know more about!"

So it's worthwhile to spend a little time creating a standard opening paragraph with a little personality that you can just drop into the beginning of every job ad.  Zappos does a good job of this - check out any of their jobs.  They all start with the same enthusiastic, branded intro that is designed to attract candidates with the best fit for the Zappos culture.

3.  Take a few minutes to fix the formatting!

A job ad with bullets all over the place, weird spacing, no paragraphs and bad spelling sends a clear message:  We don't care about our company, or this job, enough to spend 5 minutes double-checking our work.  The result?  The A-list candidates - especially the ones who already have jobs - think "Why bother considering this opportunity?  It's obviously not any better than the job I have now."

4.  Shorter is better

Yes, you may have a long laundry list of education, skills, experience and achievements that you'd like the eventual hire to have, but if you put too many of them in the initial job post, you may end up excluding great candidates who don't bother applying because they don't have bullets #32, #45 and #67.  (Remember, the better the candidate, the more likely they are to self-exclude!)

It's better to whittle down the job ad content to the must-haves.  If you've done a good job of writing a strong headline and a good introductory paragraph, potential candidates will know you have high standards and will be able to self-identify.  Here's a good example of a short-but-sweet job posting that doesn't leave the reader in any doubt.

5.  Use conversational language

The tone and manner of your job posting says a lot about your organizational culture, and can go a long way to attracting candidates with the right fit.  Long paragraphs with sentences like "Our mission is to be a trusted advisor and total solutions provider, enabling our customers to optimize their data and design assets for greater productivity and longevity, while managing their growth potential over the long term and providing calibration for business success..." are going to put candidates to sleep long before they ever manage to apply to your job.

And it doesn't really give the candidate any reason to want to work for you, either.

A better alternative?  "Our goal is to be the best in our industry.  That means hiring the best people in the business, and creating an entrepreneurial, interesting working environment with all kinds of opportunities for personal and professional growth."  Fewer words, less jargon, and geared more towards a potential employee than a potential client.