Lots of people are looking for work and a lot of remodelers are hiring. To keep your candidate list manageable, Grant Mazmanian, president at Pinnacle Group International and a business consultant to construction companies, offers some tips for writing an employment ad that, he says, will help you “attract the people you want and [turn off] the people you don’t want.”
Specify, Specify, Specify
- List any specific behaviors or characteristics — e.g., honesty, integrity — needed, as well as the skills, experience, and training required.
- Offer a reason why someone would want to work for your company.
Request a résumé and a cover letter. Lazy people might skip the letter, or their letter may have poor grammar, language, and spelling, which tells you something about their work ethic.
- Show you care. Try this language: “To arrange a confidential interview, send résumé and cover letter to Employment@XX. All résumés will be reviewed by the company owner.”
- State how the position will be paid. Good salespeople, for example, want to know what they’re getting into.
- Tell applicants where your office is located.
- Get an [email protected] address and put a “Now Hiring” button on your website.
Post your ad at least once a week online on CraigsList.com, which only shows the top 100 ads. “A lot of people only look at the top few screens and stop,” Mazmanian says. “Often, ads are small. When [job seekers] come to a long one, they’ll read it because they see it as something different.” see employment ad examples from Mazmanian.
—Stacey Freed, senior editor, REMODELING.
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