Are your adverts fair and legal? Are you sure? Take a look at these common mistakes that decrease job advert success.

With the continued rise of online job boards such as Indeed, Total Jobs, CV library and co. Thousands of candidates and hiring managers flock to these sites daily to advertise and seek their next career opportunity. 

However, most job boards don't offer guidance or support when it comes to writing job adverts, this leads to many uncensored adverts being distributed on the world wide web (including some that aren't strictly PC). Because of this many companies don't realise their adverts are discrimintive. This is particularly harmful to start up's and SME's companies who are working hard to build a positive employer brand.

That's why we've put together our top 3 common job advert mistakes to ensure your advert is fair, legal and successful. 

Top 3 Advert Sins 

Common Mistake 1 - Job Titles: A few of the most obvious titles are those such as "waitress" & "salesman".

Limiting your role by gender is a big no, no. Woman are equally adept in a sales position as are males in the hospitality sector. Ensure gender biases are removed from your ad's, don't let stereotypes interfere with hiring.

There are however some roles where applicants may need to be of a certain gender to perform a role, these include positions such as personal care worker & bathroom attendant. If your role falls in to this category it's a good idea to mention it in the body of the text to ensure you only receive relevant candidates. Protect your employer brand by explaining why your advert is only suited to a certain applicant. 

Common Mistake 2 - Age Biased: "Looking for employees to join our young fun team"

This may be said in good spirit, you may well be a fresh young company but you cannot show a bias towards younger applicants in your advert. The skills and qualities you are looking for should not be depicted by age. Another big advert mistake is stating the exact amount of years' experience required to perform a role. Stating that applicants must have e.g. 3 years experience, is excluded equally talented and qualified individuals who may have for example 2 years of relevant experience. 

There are however some roles where applicants may require employees to be of a certain age for insurance purposes, one example of this would be driving roles.  

Common Mistake 3 - Disability Discrimination:

This is a very touchy area and lots of companies ensure their recruitment process is of equal opportunity and not discriminative against disabilities (which is great). However, if you do get it wrong you run the risk of being publicly shamed. As this hiring company found out when they trivialised a disability by asked that their next employee have "OCD Tendencies".

A more common advert mistake when it comes to disability is in the finer print of the advert. If physical activity is key to the role e.g. labourer or warehouse worker make sure that duties such as "heavy lifting" are an absolute necessity and not just "desirable" or you could land yourself in hot water! 

The job advert is the first impression your companies gives, make sure it's a good one with these free tips to writing a job advert.

Always remember the purpose of a recruitment advert is to find the best suited applicant to your role. By excluding certain types of people/ groups (intentionally or non-intentionally) you're ultimately damaging a campaigns success and diminishing your pool of talent.

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