Unlike the limited real estate on a printed page, cyberspace is a vast place where job postings can and should be the electronic equivalent of a good short story. Many commercial recruitment web sites permit postings of up to 1,400 words. The most successful postings use every word to develop a compelling tale with a powerful message. They draw high quality candidates in, capture their imagination and lead them to an inescapable denouement in which they rush to apply for the position.
As with short stories, a good posting has a structure that helps organize and advance its content. While all parts of this structure are important -- the description of the opportunity, an explanation of its importance and benefits, the presentation of required and preferred qualifications and a statement regarding application procedures -- the first five lines play an especially key role. They are the looking glass through which a candidate must step in order for the rest of the story to unfold. If effective, they will do for the posting what the advertising copy on the back cover of a paperback book does for it. They will sell the reader on the value of reading on.
To perform this function, the first five lines should be constructed not as a preamble or introduction, but as a summary of what is to come. They should tell the entire story in miniature -- including enough to interest the reader in a position’s possibilities -- but leaving enough out to get them to investigate further. In essence, they must quickly catch the reader’s attention and intensely pique their curiosity.
That effect is best achieved with short, rich sentences or with hard-hitting bullets. These statements should slap at the reader’s consciousness with images and ideas that are notable, differentiating and appealing. For example, rather than describing a job’s tasks in a laundry list of required actions, the first five lines should identify the unique opportunities for personal growth, upward mobility and the chance to work on important projects or with interesting people. The posting has but one reader who counts, and that’s the job seeker. Its first five lines must focus on what the job can do for the incumbent, not on what it does for your employer.
Such content imparts information in a different way than the bureaucratic language of traditional position descriptions or the constricted phrases of classified ads. It walks a fine line between enthusiastic selling and off-putting hype. It must point out possibilities, but also be rooted in reality. In effect, the first five lines should present facts as if they were a magnet wrapped with strands of emotion, enabling them to establish their own vital force field that attracts and holds the reader.
What facts should be included? The latest research into what motivates passive as well as active job seekers suggests that there are three sets of facts about any job that deserve early recognition. These facts are:
A posting that includes these facts in its first five lines is leading with the job’s strengths. By describing those facts with language that is enthusiastic and charged with promise, it is putting those strengths to work in the job market.
Does it take a novelist to write such lines? Absolutely not. A professional writer is probably the least-qualified person to write a compelling job posting. It takes experience. The best authors are likely to be recruiters and hiring managers -- men and women who have had to look for a job. People who know what it’s like to look at hundreds or thousands of classified ads, searching for that one position that might just be their dream job. They, better than anyone else, have a sense of what creates the magic in a job. And it’s that magic that must be written into the first five lines.