Regardless of the industry and area of specialization, the first recruitment element that all candidates will encounter is the recruitment advertisement. Many of them would not have sent the application knowing the financial conditions. Is it still profitable to keep wages secret?
From the employer’s perspective, it is extremely important to define the group to which the offer is addressed. The content should depend on the job level, specialization and experience sought.
Each time you define the profile of candidates to whom a given job advertisement should reach, it also determines its content. For this reason, most of the offers currently contain information about the employer, a description of the requirements, and additional advantages, such as shorter working hours on Fridays or the possibility of using the company’s gym. However, the candidates point to other elements that are of particular importance to them. They also point out that many offers still do not contain information relevant to them, which discourages them from applying and getting acquainted with the employer’s offer.
Wages and Working Hours
According to the Hays report “(Un) Explicit Salary Offered 2018”, the information that candidates most often miss from job advertisements is potential earnings. In many countries it is standard to include information on the level of remuneration in job offers – among others, employers from Great Britain. In Poland, advertisements with a salary bracket are still rare, and information about remuneration is treated as confidential. The Hays Poland survey shows that only 4% of companies publish information about the scope of the offered remuneration in all recruitment advertisements. Another 14% of companies provide such information incidentally.
Candidates usually lack information about the amount of earnings in the advertisements. An offer that does not contain information about the remuneration offered is less noticed, which reduces the chances of quickly reaching the target group of experts, and thus hiring an employee with the desired competencies – explains Paula Rejmer, an expert at Hays Poland.
In addition to the data on the level of wages, the candidates point to a number of elements that are of great importance to them. Almost every second candidate would like to find information about working hours in the recruitment advertisement. This is related to the growing need for flexibility and reluctance of employees to companies with a culture of overtime. Professionals increasingly value organizations that help maintain a balance between work and life. Quite often, candidates also lack clear information about the deadlines for submitting applications and the next stages of recruitment. Speed in the recruitment process is more important than ever. Consequently – already at the stage of sending the CV, candidates want to know by when they can expect information about their candidacy.
A matter of details
What are the candidates still missing from the job advertisements? The Hays Poland survey shows that the company’s name and information about the employer remain important, a few words about the tools that employees can use (especially in the modern technology industry), the list of additional benefits offered and a clearly described scope of duties. There are also more and more aspects of the organizational culture – eg the description of the company’s values.
If job advertisements do not contain information relevant to the candidates, as a result, employers receive many applications from people who will ultimately be reluctant to accept the offer. Most often, candidates indicate the level of remuneration as the missing information – mainly because, unlike in many European countries, no customary or legal means of disseminating information about wages have been adopted in Poland and in our culture, the amount of earnings is considered taboo.
Apart from the level of the offered salaries, the candidates mention a few other elements, the inclusion of which in the advertisement is not so troublesome for the employer. Responding to the needs of candidates is becoming more and more important – also because of the representatives of the generations entering the labor market. For them, transparency and flexibility are the key, and employers will have to adapt their strategy to their preferences.
