How to experience a job advert. Jobseeker Basics XIX

Greg Wyatt • March 2, 2026

This might seem a weird chapter.


Surely you look at a job advert, maybe even read it, then decide to apply or not?


Yet a job advert is more than just what's presented on a job board.


It's a microcosm of everything in recruitment, including everything wrong, and you can learn a lot about what to expect in your job search by the least intentional of words.


And when you do read a job advert, in its entirety, there are only two questions you should ask of it:


  • Am I qualified?
  • Should I be interested?


It's somewhat odd that 99% of job adverts don't actually try and help you answer that.


But maybe that's why employers say job adverts don't work.


And why you don't think they do either.


While you're here, why not check out A Career Breakdown Kit in its entirety?


This series of always free chapters is an advert, after all.


But it was never supposed to be an easy book to read, just accessible and comprehensive.


I expect most readers are over 50, ND, or other marginalised demographics, considering these will likely be the longest out of work in our 'diverse and inclusive' world.


If you're 'in demand' though, you'll probably click apply and wonder what the fuss was about.


44 - How to experience a job advert

 

This chapter is about job adverts, what they are and aren’t, how you might experience them, how they might inform your decisions and your responses.


I say experience rather than read because not all adverts are written or read.


What’s a job advert?


A job advert is the first step in a multichannel commercial approach to filling a vacancy. It’s the inverse of your job search taking a multichannel, through-the-line approach - we go where the candidates are.


It’s the first step because it’s the first thing you experience of that vacancy irrespective of whether it’s a:


  • Listing on a job board
  • A post on social media
  • A DM from a recruiter
  • A phone call from a hiring process
  • A referral
  • Or any other means by which you become aware of a vacancy


Each of these is a marketing or sales channel that may result in a candidate's application.


It’s regrettable employers don’t necessarily see it this way because of the transactional nature of much recruitment process.


They think it’s sticking a job posting up on LinkedIn.


Employers forget that when you experience such an advert you first make the choice to entertain that advert rather than a yes or no to ‘Should I apply?’


Indeed much advertising neglects the psychology of a job move, which principally relates to problem awareness.


How you experience an advert, what may encourage you to progress an enquiry and what you are prepared to put up with in the process relate to your situation and the problems you currently face.


Are you out of work, needing any job to pay the bills?


Are you in work, desperate to escape a toxic culture?


Are you gainfully employed yet wouldn’t mind a bit more flexibility to pick the children up from school?


Are you apparently smashing it, with that missing something you don’t even know about, and the right vacancy might improve your lot?


And everything in between.


The answer to these questions informs your experience of any advert.


Because many employers don’t consider what informs an experience and think people would be lucky to work there, it’s rare that more than the minimum acceptable skill will be applied to an advert.


As discussed in Better use of job boards, the emphasis is on more rather than better. It’s often thought that ‘if we can reach more candidates, we might fill the job.’


Rather than appeal to the right people for the right reasons.


And so we are in a market where an advert attracts hundreds if not thousands of applications, most of whom are wholly unsuitable.


What isn’t a job advert?


A job advert isn’t a fake job, although many of these are listed.


They aren’t Job Descriptions either - the next chapter explains why this distinction is important.


While you may spend much time perusing job boards and talking with fellow job seekers, reading their posts on LinkedIn - I’d expect most employers have little awareness outside of their own sphere of what happens in the job seeker community.


They’ll advertise how they advertise, instruct agencies how they instruct agencies and run their process how they run their process.


I wonder how many great employers use Workday as an ATS, fill their jobs suitably, and have no knowledge of how Workday is viewed by job seekers who have dozens of Workday accounts, one per application?


It’s true terrible employers might do the same.


In one of my job advert consultations I had a detailed conversation with a Talent Acquisition Manager of a local technology consultancy. I can say that they are a jewel in the crown of technology development in the UK, have top 1% compensation, offer career development, and are a fantastic place to work.


I know this because I have spoken to many people who have worked there. All speak highly of them.


Yet the advert we reviewed had a number of red flags:


  • £Competitive salary
  • Generic company first text
  • Confusion around job titles


If you were an ideal candidate who decided not to apply because of these red flags you’d have missed out.


There are two considerations in how an advert might be put together.


The first is whether it is a product of a transactional process or whether the hiring team recognises potential candidates are driven by selfish reasons and seek to understand ‘what’s in it for them.’


(I’ve mentioned WIIFM (What’s in it for me) a few times now - answering that is key to good marketing)


The second is the direction of travel - are you reading a job board advert or have you been contacted proactively about the vacancy?


A transactional process is defined by information transactions with a focus on speed and volume.


It places less emphasis on qualitative measures such as accuracy, specificity, relationships, and empathy.


Instead you can define the process by a series of information transactions and exchanges:


  • Job description
  • Advert
  • Suitable number of relevant applications
  • Suitable number of interviews
  • Offer
  • Starter


The goal is to fill a vacancy.


A non-transactional process recognises the importance of relationships and that to build trust the right information needs to be put forward.


Though the steps are much the same, at each stage the question is asked: ‘Does this give the candidate the right information to make an informed decision?’


Here a candidate is everyone who interacts with the vacancy outside of the hiring end - even a reader who chooses not to apply.


The goal is to create a process that draws the right person forward while leaving everyone with a good experience.


It’s not just about decency - it’s about long-term commercial outcomes.


If you want the right person to thrive over the long term the process has to reflect this goal.


While all the ‘nos’ might be commercial opportunity in future - future candidates, future customers - who knows?


These are the archetypes. In reality, recruitment falls somewhere along this spectrum, often changing at different stages in the process.


Intent matters even if the execution is flawed.


Why does it matter?


Because a healthy rule of thumb is to reciprocate the level of care you experience.


If you come across a transactional process - treat it transactionally. This isn’t inherently bad - it’s just the way of the process.


The employers may still be good to work for.


When and whether to apply


Irrespective of how a role is recruited, there will be non-negotiable essential criteria that inform whether or not you are suitable.


If you can establish these criteria you can confirm whether to apply.


The problem is these criteria aren’t always stated.


Sometimes they are implicit to the context - if the role is employed by a rapidly growing scale-up, it’s likely they’ll need someone with that experience.


Hopefully this context is alluded to in the advert. It will need critical thinking to parse.


Sometimes these aren’t defined at the outset and become mandatory when there are too many candidates in view.


Sometimes these are hidden by Goldilocks or illegal discrimination - not too experienced, not too inexperienced, not too old.


Sometimes the employer can’t divulge essential criteria.


The other problem is that some essential criteria aren’t essential, such as when a company writes unrealistic shopping lists.


Yes, it’s a FUBAR situation given it’s pretty hard to tell whether you’re a suitable candidate or whether you should even apply.


Nonetheless - if you choose to apply your application must show how you can meet any essential criteria you can identify.


If that’s the only thing your application does - it must do this.


In my experience, transactional processes are the hardest to unpick, with adverts going something like:


Here at genericorp we are proud to be recruiting for a <job title> in our market leading innovative environment.


You’ll be doing


<insert job description for job title - one you could probably write yourself>


You’ll need

<long list of essential requirements>


In return you can expect a £competitive salary.


Apply with a full cover letter and updated CV.


Only successful candidates will be contacted.


Familiar?


Whereas the rare non-transactional adverts give more of a narrative about why the right person might think to apply or give you avenues for finding more information.


A note on inbound enquiries.


With automation allowing volume outreach the effort to produce transactional DMs, emails and messages is pretty low.


You might think when you receive such a message that you are already in the running - in many situations you are a transactional prospect.


I’ve even heard some recruiters InMail #OpenToWork profiles only to improve their response rates.


While not all messages are this way these are potential reasons you might not hear back when you reply to a recruiter.


It’s not quite the case with phone calls which have yet to be executed through automation (some platforms promise AI call automation already).


Again, you can separate transactional from non-transactional straightforwardly.


Transactional leads with selling the job.


Non-transactional seeks to explore if you are the right candidate. If the vacancy isn’t right it’s best to find that out as early as possible and save everyone time.


Inbound enquiries are still adverts, in a different medium.


Try not to treat your job search transactionally by default.


Your goal isn’t to apply for hundreds of jobs. Your goal is to start conversations that count.


By prioritising adverts in the right way you’ll improve your odds with high stakes applications. You’ll gain time and energy for other activities, including taking time away from your job search to recharge.



An inverted job search

By Greg Wyatt • October 7, 2026
I realise I've shared this chapter fairly recently, but there's good reason to revisit it. On Friday, I launched a new AI tool - Your Job Search Plan. You can find it here: https://your-jobsearch-plan.netlify.app/ It's based on the inversion principle below: the optimal job search is an inversion of how that job is optimally recruited. In other words, the first step in a job search should be to understand how recruiters and hiring processes seek to fill your ideal vacancy. Then to access all those channels while putting your best foot forward. It connects your applications, your networking, your CV, your LinkedIn profile, and so on, all of which should stem from your professional identity, the context of your career, the market conditions for that career, and therefore the work you'll need to do to boost your odds. One thing I'm pleased about with this tool is how it relates to the other tools and resources on www.bwrecruitment.co.uk/resources . So what seemed abstract, or painful activities without guaranteed outcome, become a practical arrow in the quiver of your search. I hope you find these tools helpful. They are a starting point, rather than a resolution. 20 - An inverted job search So, your broad approach to looking for a job is based on a product marketing strategy. How does this link to your job search and how companies hire? The next step is to recognise a job search is an inverted recruitment process. Whatever you can learn about the actual workings of recruitment, the better armed you are to navigate them. The first way in which this is true is around the routes to market employers take to fill a job. Employers want to fill vacancies in the most economical and efficient means possible. Sometimes they’ll rely on external advice, sometimes they’ll figure out their own way, and sometimes they’ll employ people to do it for them (such as a Talent Acquisition Manager or internal recruiter). When they rely on external advice, it may not surprise you it’s as varied and contradictory as job seeker advice. Take this nugget of wisdom: 80% of suitable candidates are not actively looking for work. By advertising, you’ll only have access to the 20% that applies to adverts. Hang on a minute! Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the hidden jobs market? Of course, candidates aren’t hidden - much like hidden jobs, the priority is to understand the channels through which candidates are found. These channels directly mirror the channels through which you look for that job: Job boards; LinkedIn; Recruitment agencies; Confidential headhunting; Internal promotions; Secondments; Temp-to-perm hires; Consulting-to-perm hires; Referrals; Networking; Speculative approaches; Careers pages; Talent pools; Candidate databases Every job is different, dictated by principles like supply and demand, confidentiality, reputational risk, wherewithal, budget and capacity. The hiring process of a Software Developer is different from that of a Sales Director. If an employer only hires through an advert - this means if you don’t apply for adverts, there’s no way in which you can be considered for that vacancy. A second way it’s accurate is the notion that what’s true for one may not be true for others. This relates to candidate resentment . You may read online that some recruitment behaviours are signs of a bad employer. Yet, you should always follow the instructions given when applying for an advert or through an agency. They may instruct you to: 1/ Write a CV, cover letter and duplicate it on their ATS 2/ Tell them your salary when they don’t list theirs 3/ Do 17 interviews before reaching a decision 4/ Deliver a 6-month strategy plan by presentation 5/ Or any other request deemed unreasonable by Career Coaches, Job seekers, or people otherwise uninvolved in that process What some consider red flags, others will deem acceptable practice. It becomes your choice to play the game or not. Either follow their instructions or step away. You don’t have to apply if you don’t want to. In a similar vein, if you hear a hiring process has a preference, or if there are gaps in their employment armoury - these might be biases you can lean into. The hiring manager loves Arsenal Football Club and is biased towards people who love the same? Now might be the time to switch allegiance, if you can fake it or make it. They love a one page CV? Apply with a one page CV. You know the hiring manager of an advert with 400 applications? Give them a call - they might give you an unfair advantage. Poor practice from the employer, yet these are problems you can turn into opportunity. A third way in which this is true is by comparing inbound and outbound activity Outbound activity is where you go to your prospect (phone calls, messaging). Inbound activity is where the prospect comes to you (job adverts, content). Yet an outbound activity for a recruiter is an inbound activity for you (you receive phone calls and messages). While an inbound activity has you getting in touch because of their advert or content. When we talk about optimising your work, whether your CV, profile or interviews, it has to give the process what it needs. How can you be more discoverable, so you receive more relevant calls and messages? How can you improve your return on applications and your outbound messages? What about inverse non-recruitment? A brilliant, if strange question, with the same answer. When networking, going direct, seeking to become a referral, doorknocking, or other, what is the inverse of that activity? How does that person find or recommend people, if they become aware of a vacancy? How might they see you as a person to solve their problems, even if it isn’t a vacancy? You do these activities because of how they might help you and because of the benefit the other party experiences. What’s in it for them? If there isn’t anything in it for them, why should they help you? For each and every stage in recruitment, there is an opposed force, as candidates and the hiring process meet each other. It’s rarely an equal force, because every vacancy has supply and demand, resource, skill level, biases and intent at play. This is why each type of role has a different method of looking for work. Executive vacancies typically prioritise headhunted candidates, with fewer public adverts. Here the priority shifts towards building relationships with, and being discoverable by, Executive Search recruiters. If executives rely mainly on job boards, they may never think to focus on more suited channels. If you can learn what the other needs for that process to be successful, you can deliver the same. Speak to peers, speak to hiring managers you know, speak to recruiters, speak to former job seekers. How have they found work, and how would they recruit for your roles? Research your market to find viable employers, to identify recruiters and to build your network.  Then execute an appropriate strategy to access these channels.

Hierarchy of Pain

By Greg Wyatt • September 23, 2026
I had an aborted conversation at a networking event on Tuesday. It was about a problem vacancy a fractional people lead was looking at. Her client had instructed various executive search firms and none had produced a viable candidate. It seems the consistent approach was to match CVs to job description - pureplay transactional - and none were candidates that met the goal of the vacancy. You see that organisational pain that the vacancy heals wasn't defined by documentation, and therefore if you rely on that documentation to find candidates, it's happenstance that you come across someone viable. It's such a common problem, and when I 'fix' problem vacancies, it's invariably something that isn't described which was holding back a successful hire. The irony is this shouldn't be a hidden pain - presuming it's appropriate to share, it should be front and centre. What complicates modern recruitment is that, instead of better specifying vacancies, both sides of the hiring fence increasingly rely on LLMs to produce documentation that shaves the edges off. And as a result a candidate that has extensively healed the hidden pain a vacancy might even remove the evidence from their application in a bit to better match an advert or job description. The more transactional recruitment comes, particularly through reliance on technology, the worse this problem becomes. Probably not an issue for business as usual vacancy, but when a vacancy has impact, standard process of "5 CVs by Friday" will invariably hold you back. The chapter below is from A Career Breakdown Kit , my guide for navigating a skewiff employment market. It may be for job seekers, but the problem and solution are directly mirrored by the hiring side. It's taken word for word from the book, so some of the content is interconnected with other chapters. You can read most of them for free in the Jobseeker Basics newsletter. Hierarchy of pain This chapter reflects on how buyers make decisions, how this is reflected in hiring and why it matters in how you put forward your CV, application, interviews and other messages. If you’ve ever encountered sales in your career or life you are likely familiar with the concepts of Features and Benefits. The product is what is proposed. Features are what it does. Benefits are how it helps. However there are actually three other components in this hierarchy that make up commercial messaging. Value is what the benefits mean to you. “Sell the sizzle, not the sausage” - the sizzle isn’t a benefit, if you don’t like sausages. Outcomes are the tangible long-term results from using that product or service. “Sell the picture frame, not the screwdriver” - or rather what’s in the frame. Why does it matter? The idea being these peel back the layers of the onion to help a potential customer understand exactly What’s In It For Them. Yet, it may not matter whatsoever if your brilliantly put together message doesn’t achieve one element - show how you heal their hidden pain. In that frame example above, this might be a photo of a loved one, no longer with us. The photo is for our memories and feelings. The frame has to be right, to commemorate them properly. While it needs to be mounted well, using tools that make the job easier. Could you market that loss to sell a screwdriver? Hopefully not, though the message might be, “For memories that matter,” instead of "High Quality Screwdriver". It's a common pain many share, yet not one you might discuss down the DIY shop. Early in my career I had a lesson on hidden pain and its importance. I recruited an HR Manager for a high growth business whose requirement was for someone with broad experience in a similar environment. I presented an excellent candidate who was only available due to the shutdown of her employer - she had to stay to the final day to manage the process well, which limited her availability to start work. That was the only reason I explained her current situation to this new employer, because redundancy management wasn’t on the job description. She got the job! On day one of her new employment, her role was made redundant and she was offered a retention bonus to shut down the local site - everyone was to lose their jobs. The hidden pain here was redundancy, something not even mentioned to me during the vacancy briefing, and something I never broached with Julie. IIRC, there was no mention of it during the interview process either. Perhaps that’s an extreme example, but it does show what can happen behind the scenes. And if you happened to be out of work, a fixed term contract with a retention bonus might be quite appealing. Were you to apply to that vacancy, it would be important to highlight your redundancy experience - customising your CV might even have worked against you! So how does this hierarchy fit within your job search? You are the product, with your next employer on a buyer’s journey. Your features are what you offer. In a CV this is a combination of job titles, qualifications, skills and areas of experience. It’s also your salary requirement, where you are based and other elements like Visa status and working arrangements. Get these right and a little luck might mean they are all you need, considering that these same elements are what we source and filter on. I expect in this market you’re in competition with many people that offer the same Features, so the differentiator is what you bring to the table uniquely. The contexts of your career combined with how you helped, your impact, your achievements, and what the outcomes were. Related chapters: Principles of a Good CV Should I customise my CV? LinkedIn profiles that get found LinkedIn profiles that convert These are all resources that will help you communicate the benefits of your experience, the value you bring, the problems you solve, and the outcomes of these solutions. As for the hidden pain question, which in many vacancies isn’t articulated, how can you unpick hidden? Go back to why vacancies are recruited. How did they come about in the first place? They only fit into two piles - new and replacement. However these two piles have many subcategories relating to the problems they solve and the pain they heal. Researching the company can help. Inside knowledge definitely helps - it’s one reason good agency recruiters will be a valuable ally. But this knowledge isn’t always available, and sometimes the employer may not even know! I always come back to the principle, “You can’t be all things to all people.” And when you try to do this, you appeal to no one. It’s one reason why using LLM style AI to customise CVs is so problematic. The output is necessarily same-same because it’s a probabilistic determination of what you want based on an aggregate of data. It’s why, when recruiters receive a volume of AI augmented CVs, they all look the same. Your ‘good enough’ core CV ( Should I customise my CV ) leans into your strengths. While you might tweak it to meet the essential requirements, in the language of the employer, this should naturally support your greatest strength - the unique fingerprint that is your career. The downside of relying on customisation against vague, and often misrepresentative, adverts is that you can deemphasise and even remove your biggest achievements. The same achievements that would have helped you stand out. If your application doesn’t heal the hidden pain of a vacancy, it’s either because you have not defined your strengths correctly or you aren’t that close of a fit with the actual needs of the vacancy. An example to show this pitfall in practice. I caught up with a friend yesterday who has resigned from a post that was missold to him. His career is based on commercial acumen and enablement in a field that is heavily focused on risk management and compliance. So he’s already unusual in a good way (though his CV didn’t show this). On day one of his new job, he encountered a literal unexpected disaster. While these things happen, and he managed the situation effectively, this proved a consequence of the business culture and strategy. These problems kept coming up and his functional area in the business needed a complete overhaul at executive level. Rather than the commercial enablement picture they painted, they needed someone who relished chaos - a master of disaster. Completely the opposite of the career Simon wants. This isn’t something they could publicise in their recruitment process, for reputational reasons, yet it was a fundamental baked-in aspect of the role. I’ve no doubt Simon’s CV is a match for their job description. Yet he is not a match for their job. What if they’d seen CVs of people who’d leant into strengths of healing dysfunction? What if he’d leant into his strength of enablement? He may not have left his previous job for something he went on to regret. If you’re sceptical about how crucial hidden pain is in recruitment, think about your own hidden pain when applying for jobs. What’s going on in your life that impacts which roles are ideal for you. The same points you might not divulge when you’re just trying to get back into employment. Perhaps you've even experienced the pain I did when considering a hardware purchase. How did that pain inform your buying decisions? It’s no different for employers when they consider the pain and problems inherent in their vacancy.