ZoomInfo, JobCast and How to Write Great Ads

By Lou Adler, president of The Adler Group

As many of you know I’m a great fan of ZoomInfo. In the third-edition of my book, Hire With Your Head (John Wiley & Sons, June 2007), I describe how to use ZoomInfo to find and recruit passive candidates. The following is an example from the book that shows how to use ZoomInfo’s JobCast email campaign tool to reach your candidates quickly and professionally. As you’ll observe, for any advertising to work you must make the titles interesting and the copy compelling. As part of this forget about posting boring job descriptions overloaded with extensive lists of skills and qualifications. This is one sure way to not see or hire a good person.

Push Your Great Ads Using JobCast
A compelling ad is the heart of an effective sourcing program; without an appealing, top-notch pitch, top people will look elsewhere. Whether posted on a job board, the company web site, or used as a verbal pitch to explain the opportunity, the ad serves as the first impression to prospective candidates, so you want it gain interest immediately.

Top people will explore career opportunities if the underlying message makes career sense. This has to do with the opportunity and growth—that is, what the person will do, what impact the person can make, and what the person can become. Don’t post traditional skills-based job descriptions if you want to see more top people. This is akin to advertising the technical specifications for a consumer product and expecting people to buy it. Ads based on qualifications exclude top people from applying who might have a slightly different background. Those who do meet the qualifications won’t apply unless they’re desperate, because the job appears boring. Unless they just love the work, the best candidates normally are not interested in doing the same job over again, even for more money. If the ad is compelling enough, you’ll attract more high-potential candidates and those great applicants sitting on the fence, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself.

ZoomInfo’s JobCast module allows recruiters to send out direct email messages to people found in their database. This is a great advantage if done properly, since you’ll be able to start contacting people within hours. We’ve discovered that about 50% of the people listed in ZoomInfo have current email addresses, so this is a great feature.

The key here again is you must make the message compelling or people will ignore it. Following is the copy of an ad we created on ZoomInfo. Since you’re going to be emailing the link to people you’ve found on ZoomInfo you’ll need to make the subject of the email and the copy interesting enough for the person to click on the link to read the complete ad. Here’s the subject line we used for this search: VP Marketing – Back to the Future. Would you read this email? Of course, the content of the email must be professional and you could certainly include much of the actual of the ad below.

Position Title:

VP Marketing - Back to the Future

Location:

Southern California, CA

Description:

Fast Forward One Year

Our client would like to thank you for accomplishing the following this past year:
1. Creating an innovative product three-year roadmap that takes full advantage of our unique product design, manufacturing and distribution capabilities (nano and super-lean) and the changing demographics in North American and Asia.
2. Building and developing a team of product managers and marketing experts that rivals any consumer products company in the world.
3. Insuring that our distribution system (SAP-based) is second to none in ensuring our customers get every order completed on-time, just-in-time.
4. Helping our world-class sales team reach another plateau in performance. We blew past our revenue budget and everybody attributes it to you and your team’s efforts.
5. Leading the effort on Implementing a forward-looking sales forecasting system that finally allows us to better predict the performance of every phase of our business.
6. Getting recognized in Business Week’s Annual Product Design Competition as a leader in product design and functionality.

Now, Back to Today

If you’d like this story to be yours, or know someone who could make it theirs, we need to talk. You can contact us at info@adlerconcepts.com.

For a little more background we’re pretty wide open but suspect the candidates will have about 15 years experience in senior-level product marketing or brand management positions at a director or VP level. Much of this experience has probably been at a big multi-national consumer products company. We’re looking for a senior level executive who knows how to build a team of marketing professionals to take our fast-growing company to another level of business performance. Combine this with a track record of launching high-tech consumer products, creating international brands, achieving results on time and on-budget, and the courage to profoundly change the way people use technology.

Options:

•	I’m interested and would like to learn more
•	Keep me informed of other relevant opportunities (this isn’t quite what I’m looking for)
•	Forward this opportunity to a friend

If you want to attract the best people, ads should be written from their unique perspective—they don’t need a job, but they might check out a better opportunity. If you want to gain their interest, recognize they’re smart, savvy, insightful, and discriminating, but not desperate. Choose the words for your ad copy with this concept in mind. Strong people who already have good jobs need a few compelling reasons to leave their current position. Your ads must clearly describe three to four reasons why a top person should bother to spend his valuable time checking out your job opportunity. Design and write your ad to stand out and attract top people who have multiple opportunities. ZoomInfo is a great place to begin the process. The layout is professional and the system is robust. Before you know it your postings will be referred to other top people. When this happens you’ll know your messaging is really working.