Why "Post and Pray" Doesn't Work Anymore
The default hiring strategy at most growing companies is still the same: write a job description, post it to a job board, and wait. The problem isn't the job board — it's the assumption buried in that approach. It only reaches candidates who are actively looking right now.
Research by LinkedIn consistently finds that around 70% of professionals consider themselves "passive candidates" — open to a move, but not actively searching.[1] That passive pool tends to include people who are employed, performing well, and not desperate. If your only strategy is inbound applications, you're competing for the remaining 30% — while paying a premium to do it.
"Your employer brand isn't what you say about yourself. It's what your employees say about you when you're not in the room."
Start With Your Employer Brand
Before you write a single job advert, get clear on what it's actually like to work at your company — honestly. Candidates research employers more thoroughly than most HR teams realise. They read Glassdoor reviews, check LinkedIn employee tenure, look at leadership posts, and sometimes message current employees directly.
Define your Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
Your EVP is the honest answer to: "Why should a talented person choose us over every other option they have?" It's not your salary range — it's the combination of culture, growth, mission, flexibility, and team quality that makes your company worth choosing.
A strong EVP is specific. "We offer a great culture" is meaningless. "We give engineers 20% time for side projects and ship to production every week" is specific and credible. Specificity earns trust; vagueness triggers scepticism.
Make your EVP visible
Your EVP should appear consistently in your careers page (with real stories, real photos, real data — not "come join our growing team"), your job adverts, your LinkedIn company page, and in every interviewer's ability to articulate why this is a good place to work.
Address what candidates actually want to know
Most careers pages bury the things candidates care most about: salary range, remote or hybrid policy, interview process, team size, and growth trajectory. Put this information front and centre. Transparency is a competitive advantage in a market where most companies are still deliberately vague.
Writing Job Adverts That Actually Work
A job advert is not a job description. A job description is an internal document. A job advert is a sales pitch to a person who has options. Treat it accordingly.
Lead with what they'll do and achieve
Most job adverts open with a list of requirements. The best ones open with context: what is the team working on right now, why does this role exist, and what will this person accomplish in their first year? Requirements matter — but they're not a hook.
Cut the requirements list in half
Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and supported by LinkedIn's own data consistently finds that women and underrepresented candidates self-select out of roles when they don't meet every listed requirement.[2] Men apply when they meet roughly 60% of requirements. This isn't about lowering standards — it's about distinguishing must-haves from preferences.
Include the salary range
Roles with salary ranges attract more qualified applicants and reduce drop-off at the offer stage. If you're worried about internal equity issues — that's a compensation problem worth solving, not a reason to hide information from candidates.
Use inclusive language
Avoid gendered or culturally coded language — "rockstar", "ninja", "dominant", "aggressive growth mindset". Tools like Textio or the free Gender Decoder provide a useful sense-check. The goal isn't sanitised language — it's writing that appeals to the widest pool of genuinely qualified people.
Be specific about the role, team, and process
Include the reporting line, team size, tech stack where relevant, working hours, flexibility policy, and interview process steps and timeline. Candidates who know what to expect drop out less and arrive better prepared.
Where to Find the Right People
Not all channels work equally for all roles. Here's a tactical breakdown of the most productive sourcing channels:
Best for professional and mid-to-senior roles. Paid InMail converts best when it's personalised and role-specific. Generic messages are ignored at scale — because they're written at scale.
Specialist job boards
For technical roles (Stack Overflow, Wellfound), finance (eFinancialCareers), legal, or healthcare — specialist boards outperform generalist ones on signal-to-noise ratio. Worth the cost for niche roles where volume matters less than fit.
Employee referrals
Consistently the highest-quality source of hires. Referred candidates tend to stay longer and perform better.[3] Run a formal referral programme with a meaningful reward — not just a thank-you email.
Community building
Slack groups, Discord communities, industry meetups, conference talks. Being genuinely present in communities your ideal candidates inhabit builds long-term pipeline. It's slow — which is exactly why most competitors don't do it.
Alumni rehiring
Former employees who left on good terms are one of the most overlooked sourcing channels. They know the culture, need less onboarding, and their return sends a powerful signal to your current team.
The Candidate Experience Is Your Brand
Every touchpoint a candidate has with your company is a brand interaction — including the ones that don't lead to a hire. A 2022 survey by CareerPlug found that 58% of job seekers had declined a job offer due to a poor candidate experience.[4]
| Stage | Common failure | Better practice |
|---|---|---|
| Application | No acknowledgement | Auto-confirm within 24 hours |
| Screening | Ghosting after CV review | Clear "not progressing" message within 5 days |
| Interview | No agenda sent in advance | Send agenda, format, and interviewer names 48 hours prior |
| Post-interview | Weeks of silence | Feedback within the agreed timeline, every time |
| Offer | Slow verbal-to-written process | Written offer within 24 hours of verbal |
| Rejection | Generic "we'll keep your CV on file" | Specific, genuine feedback on why |
Most organisations only give meaningful feedback to rejected candidates at senior levels. The ones that do it across the board are remembered — and those candidates often refer others or reapply when they're a stronger fit.
References
- LinkedIn Talent Solutions. (2023). Global Talent Trends 2023. business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/global-talent-trends
- Gaucher, D., Friesen, J., & Kay, A. C. (2011). Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(1), 109–128. doi.org/10.1037/a0022530
- SHRM. (2022). Employee Referral Programs Research Reports. Society for Human Resource Management.
- CareerPlug. (2022). Candidate Experience Report 2022. careerplug.com
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