On Recruitment Advertisements
R.Karthik
when last week's edition of Times Ascent caught my eye.
Much as I always love to do, I leafed through its pages and something
very interesting featured on the main page's story- Pink Slip Awards
for Creative Excellence in Recruitment Advertising!
Times Group instituted this award blanket a year or two ago.
There are several categories (ad/campaign/headline and so on) in which
individuals and companies lodge their entries vying for "The
Best...Award"
So I channellized my thought process into this theme!
Hope this would make for an interesting blog read.
I have wanted to (though I still haven't done) research on
classification of recruitment ads-on what bases they can be
classified, no. of and what types.
Let's think of some ads we have come across and see if we can observe
patterns/commonalities and arrive on at least 2 bases for
classification.
Makes for a very interesting student project; doesn't it?? (I wonder
why I did not take up this as a project theme when I was a student)
Now, we have seen this common-place ad which carries an introductory
paragraph about the organization's business interests and delineates
the specifications for all open positions.
Then there is the employee testimonial ad; a guy/girl-next-door
screams out of his portrait "my company is the best place to work
for....."
Euphemistically though, they go on to state "I've been with .........for 8
years now; at........we..."
None of us can have missed the 'Infoscions' who are featured as "meet
the know-it-all face of new India/meet the challenges-are-fun face of
new India"!
Why....they own the bottom half of every week's edition of job
opportunities supplement of widely-read newspapers!
And then there is the ad done the other way around! Employer singing
his associate's praise in a very subtle and intriguing way-
But these ones are a little rare; I have seen only Google's ad
carrying a story/incident and profile of an employee, how he/she
joined the organization and what is so special about the individual.
This was more of a campaign and did not talk about open positions at
all.
Yet it is worthy of being counted in our list because the employee's
childhood image or photograph is featured and that gives the ad a
collage kind of appeal that comes with the tweaked photograph with
edges cut unevenly and a scribbling or something else. Probably this
also belongs to the previous clan of ads only. (Photograph and
annotations used)
Next is the genre of ads in which a visual and a headline does all the
talking or luring rather!
Provocative statements or rhetoric or an unanswered question will just
do as much to make us sit up and scratch our nose.
Interested people surf or head to the directed space or web link to
know more and explore.
The co. has a crystal clear profile of its prospects' (who it wants to
attack and bring aboard) persona!
Something is said in the ad to that effect which will appeal to the
senses of such individuals and those guys beat a path themselves to
the co.s front office enquiring.
A brilliant ad by Saatchi brothers posting open positions in proof-
readers/editors and Copy editors; a small 5 line paragraph with the
1st or last syllable of every word jumbled.
Though spelt wrong the reader can make out what the right word is....
"fi oyu fnid sometignh worng abuot evrye wrod in tish wohel passeag it
maens we'ev fonud teh rihtg preson in oyu; at Staachi & Staachi we'er
hrinig"
The above is not the exact version of the ad which I only palely
remember (why the damn didn't I treasure it when I first saw it?)
Anyway! I hope I have conveyed the essence of it.
Intrigued by such ads I too once thought of an interesting headline
for an ad I was to co-create.
To invite applications from Sales & BD Professionals for a co.'s
nutrition biz I inserted a quotation at the header of the quarter-page
print ad.
"He that takes nutrition and ignores medicine; wastes the skill of a
physician"-A Chinese Proverb
In the over-communicated pages of any newspaper's appointments
section, your ad if it has to stand out (despite the constraints of
your dimensions and colors) will have to catch the imagination of
readers.
Teasers though uncommon in recruitment advertising also elicit
sufficient hype and finally manage to reach the audience intended for.
There are employer branding ads which besides calling for applications
to a not-much-elaborated function/technology/domain also does
communicate the boast-worthy aspects of the organization as a
workplace.
We have seen automobile companies or manufacturing co.s come up with
ad campaigns/series (not stand-alone ads) that carry info on their CSR
initiatives, awards bagged, stand taken on larger issues of the world/
country. However one insight here is that embarking on such campaigns
makes sense only for those organizations that have a pre-defined
employer branding agenda and objectives.
Well, think I have exhausted all that I have personally seen and
managed to recall.
Now let's summarize the different bases for classification;
1).Content-based
(factual- no. of positions open, JDs/JSs, walk-in venue details-
descriptive- less factual and more descriptive of desired candidate
competencies
and many more)
2). Communication objectives- based
(employer branding-employee/employer testimonials
Fun-at-work/culture
Benefits
Diversity at work
Articulation of stand taken towards issue/commitment to a larger
social cause etc)
3). Target/prospect locked
(Age-group- e.g calling on freshers/octogenarians
Niche skill- Media professionals/RJs/VJs
Freelance opportunities-language tutors/part-time faculty)
Beyond and above all these, every excellent piece of creative ad
communication crafted brings forth a newer genre.
It goes unsaid-there is much much more to recruitment ads that what
has been deliberated about.
I wish to end this passage with this note- it could be that not all
the bases of classification I have discussed here are mutually
exclusive; nor is the above classification collectively exhaustive.
Pls. do add your own perspectives to this.
R.Karthik
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