How a Job Title can affect your Recruitment Funnel

Recruitment Funnel

Some food for thought for all the recruiters out there – How many emails do you imagine active job-seekers receive as a weekly average? With all the job-boards and hiring organizations, we’d imagine that number to be anywhere between fifty-to-a-hundred. A job aspirant’s inbox is flooded with emails from hopeful organizations looking to entice them into applying for an open position. The first thing a candidate notices upon clicking a job-opening email is the ‘Job Title’ – the strongest “call to action” button in a recruiting email. If those 2-5 words haven’t been strung in a way that captures their attention, it pretty much neutralizes all the effort put into reaching this candidate.

 

When it comes to job ads, LinkedIn’s research says that only 12% of job aspirants will visit the job boards and lesser than that will go through an individual ad. Even within these ads, it is the “job title” that first comes to the attention of the candidates. In a nutshell, the success of a recruitment campaign hinges largely upon the appeal of a job title. In fact, well framed job-titles can rope in the interest of even passive candidates which is certainly a bonus for recruiters looking to rush through their dead-lines.

 

So, what’s in a title? A candidate would like a title that speaks of their job capabilities, knowledge and experience. While framing their job descriptions, recruiters often leave creativity out of the job title.  The onus of forming attractive job titles also falls upon the more senior echelons of decision making; to ensure unanimity in both, the organization as well as the industry. This may help recruiters know which titles will work for or against them. Because ultimately, the market is where the importance of differentiated job titles come to picture. You would want to send out a job title that leaps out of the crowd and speaks to them but at the same time, remains true to the work they will be doing. That is why it is so necessary that recruiters keep themselves up-to-date with the current industry trends. There are select tools for hiring which provide an industry-wide analysis that matches skills to job-titles.

 

Picking an irrelevant and complicated title is also detrimental to the recruitment effort. Candidates certainly do not want a title that warrants the question “But, what is it that you do there, exactly?” Misleading job titles can stall candidates from applying, by simply making them feel under-qualified or over-qualified. This leads to the weakening of your applicant funnel which will ultimately affect your time-to-fill. A job-aspirant usually has a title in mind when they’re looking for jobs. If they were a Senior Sales Executive, they’re probably looking for the title of an Asst. Sales Manager. To them, a job title is more than just a role, it is a standard they will hold themselves up to or a new step towards a career upon which they hope to embark. On any recruiting platform, the best shot at success is to match the Job Title and its corresponding description with what your target talent pool would be looking for. This way, your search will lead to a more fruitful set of applicants.

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