This is the final post in my Future-Proofed Talent Model series, following the infographic above
Last week I told you to fish where they swim, not where it’s convenient. This week’s post is about using the right bait.
How do you make sure they don’t scroll past your job ad (if they even read it). How do you approach someone who doesn’t necessarily want to look for another role? Read on…all will be revealed.
Most companies still treat the job ad as the last item on a hiring to-do list. Written after the decisions are made. Full of “responsible for” verbs, generic culture claims, and a “must-have” list someone inflated three years ago and no one has questioned since.
Then they wonder why the wrong people apply and the right people never see it.
The job ad is Phase 3 of my Future-Proof Talent Model. After Define (what’s the role, what’s the archetype) and Find (where do they swim) comes Earn — earning the right to a conversation with someone who isn’t looking for one.
Three things matter more than anything else.
1. The job ad is a thinking tool, not an advert.
If you can’t agree on the Kind of Person Who Thrives Here without significant disagreement in the room, you haven’t yet agreed on who you’re hiring. That’s vital information. Surface it now — not after three rounds of interviews and a poor offer six months in.
2. Write to the person, not the position.
Open by naming where the right candidate is in their professional life right now. Not with the company name and a list of accolades.
One opener I drafted for a senior engineering role this year read:
“You’re probably not looking for a new job. You’re doing good work, the team respects you, and you’ve been around long enough to know that most ‘exciting opportunities’ are just someone else’s problems with better copywriting. But you’re also honest enough to admit that something is missing.”
The right candidate reads that and feels recognised. The wrong one stops reading. Both outcomes are valuable.
3. Add the section most ads omit entirely.
A paragraph — not bullets — titled The Kind of Person Who Thrives Here. Written in second person. Character, not competencies. Real frustrations the right candidate quietly carries. Real standards they hold themselves to.
In one rewrite this year, that section included a line that effectively said: if you need rigid process and constant direction, this role isn’t for you. It’s both a signal and a filter. The predictable result of getting this section right: fewer applications, dramatically better-fit applications, faster hires.
A few more practical shifts that consistently work:
— Replace “responsible for” verbs with “you’ll own” verbs. Senior people don’t want to be responsible for things. They want to own them.
— Cut the must-have list almost in half. Most items are proxies for something else. Name the underlying thing instead.
— Write benefits with personality. “Salary reviewed every year, not when you threaten to leave” signals more about culture than any generic “great team” claim ever has.
— End with a real human contact, not a portal. “We’d rather have a conversation than receive a CV into a void.”
The bigger pattern across the whole series is this. In the empowered workforce era, candidates aren’t applying. They’re evaluating you. The job ad is the first signal they read about whether you understand them — or whether you’re another company writing for yourself and hoping the right person turns up.
Define. Find. Earn.
That’s the Future-Proof Talent Model.
If you were writing a job ad for your current role, what would the Kind of Person Who Thrives Here section actually say?
#TalentStrategy #FutureOfWork #HiringStrategy #Recruitment
Interested in having your recruitment process reviewed and revitalised? Let’s chat. One recruitment review I did saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars per year – and led to them hiring MUCH better candidates.
