Economists like to talk about the job market in terms of employer and candidate markets. The basic difference? The party with more control. In an employer market, as we experienced a year ago after the pandemic, employers have all the power in the world. A ton of people are applying. Companies have their choice of active and passive candidates. 

That's not the market we're living in right now. Candidates have the power. Around the world, companies are seeing fewer applications and having more people drop out of the process because they already have an offer in hand.

Still, so many hiring managers still believe they’re living in an employer market. They value speed over effectiveness and encourage teams to recycle old tactics to facilitate speed. However, current conditions are unlike any job market recruiters have seen. The “tried and true” job posting templates aren't working anymore — but there are some ways to refresh old these old templates for newfound success. 

Imagine this. I was sitting in a panel interview for a job. There were three executives and a recruiter seated around the table. I was feeling great. It was my last of three interviews that morning. I was sure if this went well. I was getting an offer this week.

They asked me some standard interview question like, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" At this point, I was feeling terrific about my chances, so I went for the fun answer: “Working for you, Sean.”

I smiled. I was expecting a laugh, but that's not what happened next. It was as if the air left the room. I think I heard a mini gasp come from one of the executives. The person I referred to as Sean? Not his name, and he was the kind of person who took that very personally. 

"It's Steven," he said with a huff. 

"Shit," I said under my breath. 

Around 2009, some companies got a great idea that they would create unique job titles. Witty, right? These job titles would be ultra-unique and use hip buzzwords to differentiate their company from another company down the street with the same idea and open requisition.

Want to increase your job post engagement with candidates from diverse backgrounds? Sure, but how? First, we have to change the way we've always done things. Job post strategies haven't changed in the last 100+ years, leaving us with 100-year-old biases.

This hands-on presentation will provide examples of why many job postings fall flat, particularly regarding inclusion, and four ways you can refresh this content. You'll walk away with tactics to increase qualified candidate engagement by as much as 300%, and you'll reach many more qualified candidates from diverse backgrounds. Bonus: we'll show you the search strings you might be using every day that are actually making things worse.

You'll learn how to:
- Break the trends with better tactics for talking about skills and education in your job postings
- Avoid creating psychological barriers that send candidates from diverse backgrounds running away
- Recognize what works and what doesn't about your current job posts
- Hone your writing to improve response rates, including from those hard-to-find candidates and passive job seekers from diverse backgrounds
...and more!

Here are a few of the subject-line lessons I learned as an email marketer to create automated candidate outreach emails that get read