If you’re doing this as a hiring manager, please stop it. Right now.

What are they doing that’s caused me such disdain?

Each and every one of them have posted a job vacancy, along with the words “great opportunity”.

Now, I’ve no doubt whatsoever that a couple of these opportunities may indeed be great. A couple are likely to be pretty average. A few, I’m quite sure, will be very uninteresting indeed.

Why? Because “great” is a totally subjective adjective that really has no consistent meaning whatsoever, so what’s great to me will almost certainly not be great to you. A great opportunity for Lewis Hamilton would not be to drive a bus for £11.20 per hour. Likewise, Gordon Ramsay would not be viewing the chef vacancy at Harrogate’s Pizza Express as the great opportunity he’s been patiently waiting for his whole life.

So hiring managers – please stop telling us that this is a “great opportunity” and tell us why. Tell us who might be attracted to such a position, tell us all the wonderful things that your company does – and be specific. I saw one the other day – “Great opportunity. Great company with a great team”. Sad thing was, this was from a Sales Director, and he wasn’t taking the piss! He’d been at the business for over 10 years, yet could say nothing of substance whatsoever about the job, the company or the team. Apart from that all three were, of course, exciting. Oh wait, that’s another one. I mean great.

I’ve asked myself why people do it, and I think, for the most part, it’s simply ignorance.

And I don’t mean that in a bad way – far from it. These hiring managers don’t know they’re doing anything wrong. You see, these aren’t, 99% of the time, experienced recruiters. They’re people with a million other things to do, who have probably had recruitment forced upon them, or who are having to step up and recruit because there’s nobody else to do it for them. So, they just don’t know how to be effective – and who could blame them? I’m a recruiter. I know about recruitment. But put me in the cockpit of a 747 to Tenerife and the passengers on that plane won’t be getting a suntan.

Thing is, it makes total sense to have a pilot in that scenario. Yet hiring a recruiter – that’s not going to save your life, so it’s a lot more…optional. But it might just save you a whole load of hassle. So hiring managers, have a look at which recruitment businesses specialise in your market. See what value they could offer you, get to know them, assess for yourself how useful they might be. But check out their adverts before you speak to them. If they use words like “great” or “exciting” or “market leading” – run. Run an absolute mile.

If you’re a hiring manager in the ingredients & nutrition market and this article has resonated with you, just know that we’re experts at understanding your “why”. Even if you don’t yet know it yourself, we’ll ask you the questions to ensure that the message we put out there about your business, about your team, and about the opportunity in your business, are all compelling and appeal to the sort of person you’re looking for. There will never just be a job description with a “check out this great opportunity” post from us. If you invest a bit of time at the front end, we’ll take the whole weight of recruitment off your shoulders. We’d love to have a chat if you want to find out more.