Recruitment advertising · Marketing
The vacancy has been open four months and the advertisement never changed.
Employer branding decides whether people want to work with you. Recruitment advertising is the narrower job of putting one vacancy in front of people who are looking this week. The second purchase has a joining date attached to it.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
Recruitment advertising is media bought to fill vacancies rather than to sell: job board postings, the Sunday appointments column, walk-in drive banners, and posts aimed at candidates on social. GullySales plans which of those suits the role, coordinates the booking, and reports applications against interviews actually held.
The media follow the role, not the company. A CNC operator is hired off a banner at the gate, a WhatsApp group and a word from an operator already on the floor. A costing accountant comes off a portal database and a phone call.
Most of what a job board sells is not the posting. It is search access to the resume database, which is where the hiring happens, while the posting decides who applies without being asked.
Who it is for
This is written for you if these sound familiar.
- Factories and workshops hiring operators, fitters, welders and helpers in batches
- Security, facility management and logistics companies running a constant intake
- Hospitals and diagnostic chains hiring nurses, technicians and front-desk staff
- Restaurant and retail chains opening an outlet and needing thirty people by a date
- A company that has paid for a job board all year and never opened the database
- Owners whose only hiring route is a consultant, at a fee per joinee they cannot keep paying
Not for
It is not the right fit if.
- One senior or confidential appointment, which is found by search and referral rather than bought as media
- A role paying below what the factory next door pays, because advertising only makes that comparison faster
- Teams who cannot interview within a week of the application, since the candidate joins whoever called first
The problem
Does this sound like your business?
What owners tell us on the first call, in their words.
“Applications come in and nobody turns up for the interview”
The advertisement gave the designation and not the shift, the pay band or where the plant actually is. Candidates found all three out later and stopped answering.
“The same vacancy has been reposted since March”
Nothing in the posting has changed, so the same people see it and scroll past. A vacancy reposted month after month reads as a job nobody wanted.
“The consultant fee is now larger than the advertising budget”
Every hire goes through an agency because no direct route was ever built. Meanwhile the portal subscription sits unused in somebody's login.
“The walk-in drive brought a crowd and three joinees”
Banners went up two days before, on a road the wrong workers use, and the drive fell on a day when most of them were on shift.
What we do
Everything that is included.
Each deliverable, and what it gets you. Nothing here is an extra.
Role-by-role media plan
Which vacancies justify a portal, which need a banner at the gate, and which are filled faster by paying your own staff a referral amount.
A job post written to be answered
Shift timing, the pay band, the exact location, the qualification that is compulsory and the one that is not, with a number a candidate can ring.
Portal subscription and database routine
What the subscription covers in postings and database searches, plus a routine for your HR to work that database instead of waiting.
Classified and appointments column booking
The day the appointments page runs in your city's edition, the size, the closing time and the rate, coordinated with the publication.
Drive and gate campaigns
Banners, pamphlets and auto announcements around the industrial area, timed to the drive date and to the shift change when people can stop and read.
Candidate response handling
One number and one WhatsApp line for applications, every caller logged, so nobody is lost between the receptionist and the HR executive.
Interview and offer dates agreed first
Panel availability is fixed before the advertisement runs. An application that waits nine days is an application that has already accepted elsewhere.
Cost per joinee by source
Applications, interviews attended, offers and joinees traced back to the portal, the banner or the referral that produced each one.
How the result is measured
- Applications by source
- Candidates who attended against those who confirmed
- Offers made and joinees on the agreed date
- Cost per joinee by source
- Days from application to offer
- Vacancies still open past the plan date
Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.
How it works
How the recruitment advertising work runs
The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.
- 1
Write down what the job really is
Shift, pay band, location, travel, and the two things the person must have done before. Half the hiring problem is a designation with no detail behind it.
- 2
Match the media to the candidate
A driver, a staff nurse and a costing accountant look for work in three different places. We buy the ones your role actually sits in.
- 3
Schedule around the drive date
Postings, classifieds and banners are placed so the response peaks on the days your panel is free to interview.
- 4
Run the response desk
Calls and messages are logged the day they arrive and passed to HR with the shift and location already discussed with the candidate.
- 5
Fill it and then stop
Campaigns are pulled as soon as the offers are out, and what worked is written down so the next intake does not start from nothing.
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
GullySales builds every engagement from three pieces of sales work. This page is not one of them, but the same three steps apply to the business behind it.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Is this the same as employer branding?
Do job boards work for hiring operators and drivers?
How quickly can a walk-in drive be filled?
Will you run the interviews as well?
What will the media cost?
How long is the contract?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
By industry
Recruitment advertising, written for your industry.
Related services
Often bought with this, or instead of it.
Learn the method
The teaching pages behind this work. Read them to judge the work, or to do the parts you want to do yourself.
Read before you buy
- Employer branding for clinics, schools and hospitals that struggle to keep staffNurses, teachers and clinic staff leave over shifts, supervision and growth more than perks. What to show on a careers page and on a walk-through so the right people stay.
- How to run an employee advocacy programme without forcing people to postHow to make sharing company content optional and worth doing: what to offer staff, what to leave alone, where work ends and personal life begins, and how to know if it is working.
- What employer branding means for a company of fifty peopleEmployer branding is what candidates find and hear about working for you before they apply. A company of fifty already has one. This post shows how to see it, who shapes it and what to fix first.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.