The best techniques are the same as for all other advertising. The job is your product and the readers are your customers so you need to attract attention, create interest and desire and then get people to apply for the job. The advert needs to be succinct, appealing and clear in order to get the right people to apply. Design should be clear so you portray a professional image. Branding should be there but not dominate.
Things to avoid:
- Over-designed graphics and extravagant layout
- Difficult to read eg font (type-style) too small or too large
- capital-letters (upper-case)
- Lots of words in italics – which are more difficult to read quickly
- Use of silly colours, tints against a coloured, patterned or picture background or writing over images
- Clever or obscure headlines
- Too much technical details about the job or the company
- Too many words – they are a real turn-off – keep it simple
- Boring descriptions of roles and ideal candidates
- Too much emphasis on the job and not enough on the person
- Weird advert shapes eg for example wide and flat or tall and thin
