Sportspeople regularly audits the Sportspeople Jobs Market measuring and testing features to improve the reach and overall effectiveness of job advertisements. What makes an advertisement appealing to candidates underpins our design and layout, including the content required for the searchable fields.

Traditionally, job seekers focus on five core elements of a job:

1. Salary
2. Job Title
3. Location
4. Nature of the role – Part-Time, Full-Time etc. and
5. Information “About” the employer

While all the other information in the job advertisement is important, nothing is more important to a job seeker than these five core elements. While job title, location and the nature of the role are always mentioned, too often salary and information about the employer are overlooked as not being a critical element in the job advertisement.

• Around 33% of the jobs in the fitness sector include salary information.
• Where salary is stated the number of views of the advertisement can be up to 30% higher.

Additionally, there is a direct relationship between the number of views, the number of applications and the amount of information about the employer and/or the job contained within the advertisement. The general exception to this response is where the employer is a highly recognised, large Health & Fitness network (e.g. Virgin Active or Fit’N’Fast), demonstrating brand is also important to job seekers. The predominantly casual nature of jobs in the Australian health & fitness sector has created an itinerant workforce, with a relatively low number of permanent roles and a narrow career path for those seeking or engaged in full-time work.

The sector is happy to embrace and encourage development and expansion of health & fitness facilities, pushed along by unprecedented consumer demand; however, across Australia, it is already evident that the pool of available and skilled candidates does not meet the current needs, let alone the needs of the future.

So what can you do to make your job advertisement more effective? Here are some quick tips:

1. Remember you are in a competitive open market where there is generally a shortage of highly skilled workers. You are competing directly against other Health & fitness employers for this limited supply of candidates.
2. Clearly state salary and package details in your job advertisement. Where possible avoid using vague references such as “attractive package” or “package negotiable”.
3. Pay market rate - Do some research to see what others are paying and make sure you are competitive. If there are 40 Personal Trainer jobs on a Job Board, you certainly don’t want to be the one with the lowest salary.
4. Provide background on your business or organisation in the job advertisement, including such things as work culture, hours of work, career prospects, staff benefits, staff training etc.
5. Upload a Position Overview or as a minimum, provide a clear, concise explanation of the job.
6. Outline the nature of the role. Is it Full-Time, Part-Time, Casual or Contract? Provide an indication of the typical hours to be worked, including whether weekends or evenings are part of the role.
7. Clearly articulate what you are seeking in an employee, what the job entails and what opportunities exist with your business or organisation.
8. Make sure the contact person is available to candidates during the recruitment period. One of the most common complaints from candidates is that the contact person for the job is not available or gone away on leave! Provide contact numbers as well as an email address.
9. Include a link to your website.
10. Include “essential” as well as “preferable” qualifications to ensure you are attracting suitably skilled candidates.
11. Clearly list the “How to Apply” details and the closing date.
12. Invite potential staff to your facility to meet other staff and to “get a feel” for the work environment.
13. When advertising for Membership or Sales staff, avoid excessively low base and high commission packages. Staff need to pay bills just like everyone else, so they need a reasonable base wage to live.
14. Consider Industry Traineeships for school leavers, providing on the job training and work opportunity as well as taking on candidates with less experience and up-skill through on the job training.

Federal and state legislation prohibits discrimination in recruitment advertising so you need to be aware of anti-discrimination laws and their effect on advertising. Importantly, your wording should avoid the use of stereotypical or discriminatory language or discriminatory requirements. There is no point adding - "We are an equal opportunity employer" then proceeding to appoint employees in accordance with rules that have 'always' been applied.

A well constructed, information-rich job advertisement will certainly help you attract candidates that match your requirements. Your job advertisement says a lot about who you are, positions your brand within the health & fitness marketplace and is designed to make the job seeker want to find out more about working for you.