Local Press Recruitment Advertising

By David Carter

The local press wants your advertising budget, make no mistake.

Local press recruitment advertising is a very lucrative and competitive market and there are deals to be had - but all is not what it might seem, so tread carefully before you blow your recruitment budget on the wrong publication.

Generally speaking, there are two types of local newspaper. The daily ones and the weekly ones.

Depending on what position you are advertising, either or both might present a good option for placing your recruitment advertisement.

On the positive side,

• local press recruitment advertising is relatively inexpensive.
• local press recruitment advertising is simple to organise
• local press recruitment advertising is targeting local candidates

But there's a downside too.

• Local press usually has a small readership
• It is not suitable for senior or specialised job vacancies
• Many local publications have a short shelf life

If you rule out the thin and rather useless local advertising weeklies, you can't go far wrong with local press recruitment advertising.

The publications you want are those that carry substantial local news content in addition to the classified advertising that goes with them - but only if the publication has a fairly well stocked recruitment advertising section already.

Don't waste your recruitment money on new publications!

Daily local papers are much better than weeklies. Most cities have their own local daily now and each one will have a special recruitment day where advertising is busier than other days.

In the Birmingham area for example, it would be silly to advertise vacancies on any day other than a Thursday - as this is the busiest day for recruitment ads, whereas Friday is best for advertising cars for sale.

The weekly journals have their place, but typically it will be recruitment agencies and companies looking for unskilled staff that will advertise most positions here.

Personally, I always recommend using the best publication that you can afford. Where you advertise says a lot about your company. Do you want to be associated with the best, or the cheapest?

Whatever publication you choose, you next have to decide on whether to place a display, semi-display or a lineage advertisement.

Lineage Advertising

Lineage ads are for cheap companies offering unskilled jobs. The perception by job seekers is that the vacancies advertised in the lineage spaces are generally commission-only sales or canvassing jobs, cleaners, packers, assembly workers etc.

Only the unskilled and the desperate read the lineage advertisements. If that's who you want to recruit, then this is where you should be spending your money.

Semi-Display Recruitment Advertising

Semi-display ads allow you to buy bigger ads, together with a headline and sub heading usually. They are still pretty much in lineage format, but they allow you to space your ad across two or more columns, to make it look like a display advertisement.

Semi-Display recruitment advertisements are certainly better than lineage ads. In fact, it's the absolute minimum format you should consider if you want good quality response. I think 2 columns by 6 centimetres is the smallest you should consider for any vacancy that you have to fill.

Be careful though, as many local publications are reluctant to send proof copies over to you to check before publication. Their preferred method of operation is to have you email or fax the copy over to them and they set it on your behalf.

My advice is that you insist on seeing the proof before you place the advertisement, otherwise your recruitment advertisement could suffer.

I have seen many well written ads that look awful simply because the advertiser didn't check the format.

Typical problems are:

• Headlines being split - so the bits you wanted to be bold are in normal type
• Split words. Don't penny-pinch. Ask the publication not to split words between lines. It looks terrible!
• Address / Phone: ALWAYS double check that people can respond to your ad - check spellings and check again

Local press display advertising

Display advertising is essential for any position that requires specific skills. Management jobs, IT jobs, the professions and any vacancies where competition for skills is high absolutely must be in a display advertisement together with your company logo and full contact details.

Display advertising isn't cheap, but this is where candidates look first - so you need to follow a few guidelines:

• Always put the job title in the headline
• Always quote a salary or salary range
• Always state the location
• Sell the job to the candidate - don't expect candidates to sell themselves to you
• Keep the ad focused first on what the duties are and then what you can offer the candidate

The days where an employer can ask "Why do you want to work here?" are over. Job seekers have more choice available to them now than at any other time in our history.

There is no point in trying to attract second-best people when the commercial world is so competitive. You should aim to attract the best people, because they will take your company forward.

Other advertising methods are described in more detail in other articles on this site.

If you are an employer and would like assistance with any aspect of a recruitment exercise, whether it's advertising, candidate screening, interviewing or selection, please call David Carter on 01564 824554 or 07800 790427.