Job Boards Aren’t Dead. It’s Just That Your Ads Suck.

Five times more applicants read the headline than the actual ad, meaning that you have somewhere between 1 and 10 seconds to grab someone’s attention.

The Staffing Advisor searched for “controller” jobs in his zip code and made a tag cloud based on the job descriptions that came up. Here it is:

He claims that too many companies are writing boring job descriptions.

“Think about what the tone of your ad conveys about your company – serious, committed, playful, creative -what? (Just a guess here, but right now, it probably conveys that you are pretty dull because you are probably using the soul crushing language of the job description),” he writes.

Just for fun, we plugged in some media job listings. The resulting tag cloud isn’t much better, even with the fancy colors:

How could these ads be improved? We can’t all go the Starr Tincup route, can we?

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.