Job posting was so easy a few years ago. But that is no longer the case and true of days of old when it was as simple as taking out a classified ad in the local metropolitan and national newspapers and posting it to the one or two primary job sites.
Compared to just a few years ago, there are a plethora of ways to promote job openings today.
Today, there are an almost unending myriad of promotional channels from which to choose—free and paid job posting sites, social media, personal referrals, event marketing, and private talent pools. Knowing when and how to use these can be the difference between a quick and easy candidate search to a lengthy slog resulting in an insufficient number of candidates who don’t match your requirements.
Cast your net too wide, and you’ll waste money posting to ineffective sourcing vehicles while spending valuable time culling through piles of candidate applications, many of which aren’t what you’re seeking. Go too narrow, and you’re going to miss some of your best candidates (over three-quarters are passive jobseekers) and sometime fail to find a qualified applicant.
75% of the most qualified jobseekers are passive. How you are finding and engaging these candidates is often the difference between a list of subpar candidates and one full of rock stars.
The importance of a great job ad strategy is particularly important for security leaders. There are over 1 million unfilled security positions today, a number that is expected to grow to 1.8 million in a couple years. Simply put, without a great job ad strategy, CISOs and security hiring leaders cannot attract the talent you need to fill all of your job openings. Hiring becomes an ordeal that rarely results in positive outcomes, as you are relegated to sifting through disappointing candidate applications that fall short of your specified qualifications and experience.
Well-tuned job ad strategies consist of two premises—one short term and the other long term. The long-term objective is to build up a pool of potential candidates who are aware of and interested in your organization. Assuming you maintain ongoing communications with them, this candidate pool remains engaged and a great repository from which to identify potential candidates who are good fits for the role. As to your short-term objective, you aspire to attract great candidate applications.
If you target jobseekers on only a couple sourcing channels, you’re going to miss the mark. Research reveals that jobseekers use an average of 17.7 different channels when searching for a job.
Without a good job ad strategy, organizations are throwing darts at the dartboard when it comes to finding qualified jobseekers.
The following should be part of nearly every candidate search, especially in an occupational field as competitive as cybersecurity:
Job boards are a critical source for candidates, but they aren’t all the same. Generalist job boards are designed to attract jobseekers across a range of job titles and industries, whereas niche job boards target specific industries or even occupations. And then there are job aggregators, social media, and ad networks.
To avoid disjointed, scattershot exercises that attract an unfavorable ratio of random applicant dross to strong candidate gold, hiring organizations should formulate a job posting strategy that covers the message, candidate demographics, and communications channel selection bases. Following are some core attributes to include in your job posting strategy:
The menu of job posting communications channels generally breaks down into three categories:
If our above analysis peaked your interest, you may want to check out our CISO Hiring Guide on Job Posting that includes much more detail on what you can do to ensure you and your recruiting team have the right job posting strategy in place. You can also check out our other CISO Hiring Guides on the Fortinet content hub.