3 Essential Elements of a STANDOUT Food & Beverage Job Posting
Starting Salary: $2,000,000
Recruiting A-level professionals would be so much easier if you could just afford to offer every candidate a multi-million dollar salary.
But we live in the real world, and we have to deal with real recruiting challenges: limited budgets, tight hiring deadlines and talent shortages.
If you can’t advertise $2 million salaries, how can you attract high-performing food & beverage talent in today’s competitive market? Make sure your food & beverage job postings contain these three things:
1. A detailed job description.
You may know that you definitely need to hire someone, but have you carefully thought through what that individual will be doing? Top professionals in our industry want to know exactly what they’re signing on for before they invest time and effort in pursuing an opportunity. So if your job description doesn’t contain sufficient detail, prospective candidates will assume one of two things:
- The position really doesn’t exist (i.e., you’re just “fishing” to gauge the market or build your candidate database).
- Your food & beverage organization really doesn’t care that much about its employees.
Neither creates a favorable impression in a candidate’s mind.
A detailed job description isn’t just helpful for candidates; it’s also beneficial to your entire organization. For more information on how (and why) to write compelling, concise position overviews, read this post:
Why Your Executive Food & Beverage Job Descriptions Aren’t Yielding the Best Candidates
2. A definition of both the skills AND the competencies needed.
In some ways, skills and competencies are similar; they both identify an ability that a candidate has acquired (through learning and experience). But that’s where the similarities end:
- Skills are specific, learned activities a food & beverage professional or executive can perform. They’re fairly tangible and easy to describe in a job posting.
- Competencies, however, are more comprehensive. They’re a combination of skills, knowledge and behavior, which makes them tougher to define – but more vital to describing what it takes to succeed in a role.
Strengthen your food & beverage job posting by listing essential skills and also reviewing the “big picture” competencies required for exceptional performance. Why? High performers know what they bring to the table. If they identify a match between their strengths and the competencies you describe, they’re more likely to apply.
3. The “WIIFM.”
“What’s in it for me?” That’s what food & beverage professionals are thinking when they scan your posting. Make sure you provide the information they seek:
- Don’t just describe the job; explain what makes the opportunity exceptional. What are the key challenges to be met? What kind of problems will the new hire need to solve? Where will this individual make an impact in your organization? What’s the long-term career trajectory within your organization for this role? Ultimately, you want to create an “opportunity gap” in a potential candidate’s mind that’s big enough to entice him to act.
- Address candidates’ “hot buttons” early in the posting. What factors are most important to the ideal candidate for this role? Beyond pay, describe key employment intangibles, such as advancement opportunities, challenging work, flexibility, corporate culture, professional development perks and more.
Need Help Writing Exceptional Job Postings – or Hiring Exceptional Talent?
Kinsa Group has the resources and expertise to help you attract executive and c-level food & beverage professionals with the skills, experience and ethical standards to thrive in your organization. Our recruiting experts collaborate with you to develop highly effective job descriptions that yield exceptional candidates who match your needs. Want to learn more? Contact Kinsa today.