5 Examples of Great IT Job Ads

Recruiting IT professionals? Forget about the classic job ads!

Attracting and hiring tech talent is one of the top challenges for most companies. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2020 in the US alone there will be over one million computer science-based jobs without qualified college graduates to fill them.

According to the latest StackOverflow Developer Survey 2019, which surveyed 90,000 developers around the world, only 6.4% of developers are currently unemployed and looking for work.

This is why an overwhelming majority of companies are already struggling to find and hire qualified IT professionals. A recent Indeed’s survey had found that almost 9 in 10 employers (86%) say they find it challenging to attract and hire technical talent.

When you are hiring IT professionals, you enter a highly competitive market. In the current job market, tech candidates hold all the power in their hands. And they are very well aware of it. Every decent developer receives a dozen job offers a week only through LinkedIn!

Only the best recruiting agencies with high-quality website design and world-class recruiting agency ATS software are able to grab the attention of candidates.

If you want to cut through the noise, you need to differentiate your job ads. Forget about the classic job ads. Those are a thing of the past. In order to attract stand-out tech candidates, you need to create stand-out job advertisements. In this article, you’ll learn exactly how to do it.

How to attract the attention of IT candidates?

If you tried posting your job openings for developers on any job board recently, you’ve probably faced one of the following scenarios:

1. You didn’t get any applications.
2. You received a ton of unqualified applications.

Gone are the days when you could post your job opening on a few leading job boards and wait for qualified IT professionals to apply. This old-fashioned, traditional job advertisement approach no longer works.

This is because most IT professionals are employed. Consequently, you won’t find them browsing job boards. They already have a (well paying) job which is why they aren’t actively looking for another one. However, if they come across an interesting job ad, they’d be willing to consider it.

According to the world’s largest and most comprehensive developer survey “The Global Developer Hiring Landscape” conducted by Stack Overflow, an overwhelming 75% of developers are interested in hearing about new job opportunities!

So how can you reach those potentially interested, passive tech candidates? Where should you place your job ads for developers? And how can you create a great job ad that will grab their attention and make them want to apply?

If you want to hire top tech talent, you need to think out of the box. First of all, you need to find innovative ways to reach your potential candidates.  Second, you need to get creative and think of ways to sell them your job openings.

Top 5 examples of great IT job ads

Leading companies are creative in finding, enticing and hiring tech talent. They know that posting generic job ads on job boards won’t get them top IT professionals. This is why they have started creating out of the box, dynamic job ads and delivering them to tech candidates through unexpected channels.

Here are 5 examples of the best IT job ads that stand out:

Example #1: Uber’s in-app coding game

Instead of writing boring, textual job ads, Uber is recruiting engineers through job ads in the form of an in-app coding game. In other words, Uber is scouting for potential hires through hacking challenges offered to users during their rides. The challenges appear in the Uber app under a heading that reads: “Code on the Road.”

The game involves three coding challenges, and participants have one minute to complete each one. Candidates who score well enough are prompted to contact Uber directly through the app. They then receive an email with a link to a job application.

Example #2: Google’s billboard

Google paid for billboards in Silicon Valley and Harvard Square that displayed a web address in the form of a math puzzle. The answer led to a website that presented an additional problem. The final answer took potential candidates to Google’s recruiting page where they were asked to submit their resumes.

The final web page read: “One thing we learned while building Google is that it’s easier to find what you’re looking for if it comes looking for you. What we’re looking for are the best engineers in the world. And here you are.”

What an ingenious and clever way to recruit top tech talent!

Example #3: Deegloo’s social media job post

A software development agency Deegloo uses social media to promote their job openings. Their Facebook job ad for Angular and React engineers does a few things really well. For starters, it uses an eye-catching visual containing a reference only Angular and React developers will understand and find funny.

Secondly, rather than focusing on what the candidates can do for them, Deegloo focused on candidates and their needs. Their job ad highlights their offering to potential candidates: a pleasant work environment and a chance to build challenging projects from scratch.

Example #4: Automattic’s Google Adwords job ad

Automattic Inc. is a web development corporation who created WordPress.com. Automattic uses Google Adwords to promote their open job positions. This way, they can target a specific type of candidates they are looking for – developers.

Their job ad is in the form of a well-crafted image which contains a coded message – something only developers could read and make sense of. This is a great example of a job ad created specifically for developers and talks to them in their language.  

Example #5: IMI’s video job ad

Internet Marketing Inc. (IMI) is a full-service digital marketing agency who created their job ad in the form of a video. Their video created as a job ad for hiring front-end developers starts with their current employee explaining why he loves working at IMI.

IMI did a great job of turning their ad into a video featuring a very personal story from another developer who works at their company. In less than 2 minutes, their potential job candidates can find out about the latest technologies they use, the interesting project they work on and get a glimpse into their company culture.

Key takeaways

If you want to attract the attention of the top tech talent, you need to create enticing job ads that will make them want to apply. Don’t be afraid to get creative and think out of the box! Create eye-catching job ads in the form of an interesting visual, video or a game. Hopefully, these top 5 examples of creative IT job ads have inspired you to create your own unique job ads.