Your aim with job adverts is to attract serious potential candidates - therefore, it’s easy to see why humour and creativity may not be a priority when creating them! After all, knowing a structure of an irresistible job ad can be the key to success – but sometimes, it’s simply not enough. Getting a good return on investment in your adverts isn’t just about clear and concise messaging, but also about showcasing your client’s business culture and vibe.
So, to inspire you to think outside the box when creating your job ads - or just for a bit of fun, really - here are 6 unusual and memorable job ads we think are pretty awesome.
1. How good is your meme game?
You may think your meme game is strong but is it good enough to be a CMO (chief meme officer…)?
In August 2020 a social post from Bud Light when viral when their VP of marketing announced that they were looking for a chief meme officer to help promote the brand’s new line of hard seltzers.
The brand's shared that the CMO responsibilities would include enjoying Bud Light Seltzer while creating ten viral memes and sharing them via social media. The chosen CMO would also receive $5,000 for 3 months - which I think you would agree is a great deal for having some fire meme skills!
Unique, fun, eye-catching, controversial… All the components of an irresistible job ad!
2. Passive aggressiveness is not the key…
This is a great example of what not to do!
This TikTok went viral for all the wrong reasons when what seemed like a normal job ad started to go downhill very quickly.
Sure, humour is great – needed, even – but offensive humour? If a job advert tells us to ‘not apply for this role if you have an inability to handle skilful sarcasm, have no alarm clock, tend to oversleep, and call in sick if you’ve partied the night before’, I think it’s time to rethink your job ad copy.
The ad then gets ridiculous mentioning things like 'Do not apply if you'll think you need nights off because your grandma poisoned you with her ham, again'. Safe to say that we should all know that this is the height of unprofessionalism!
Make sure your jokes are actually light-hearted and funny, not passive-aggressive.
3. Know your audience and target market
6 years ago, McDonald’s in Japan came up with one of the most inventive ways to try and recruit new and part-time talent into the business.
Obviously, anime is massive in Japan and really big with teenagers and young adults - so McDonald’s made a whole anime-based commercial, promoting working for the company and nailing the message for its target market.
4. Play on humour to find what you’re looking for
I few years ago, this simple job ad for a graphic designer went viral on Twitter.
The simplicity and humour behind this ad really made it stand out and clearly showed ‘the need’ for the role they were recruiting for.
5. You can always count on Google
Although Google has since acknowledged that brain teasers don’t really work for recruitment, you can’t deny that this ad does a good job of filtering out the less dedicated applicants!
The answer to this tricky maths problem was the beginning of a chain that ended with a potential job as a Google engineer. Possibly the most creative job screening method I’ve come across, as well as ensuring your candidates have a healthy curiosity, problem-solving skills, and determination!
6. Standard job ad with a twist
In 2019, Twitter put up a job advertisement with an unusual title, looking for a “Tweeter in Chief.”
Although the rest of the job ad was fairly standard, the unusual title caused it to go viral and this simple play on words caused an otherwise standard ad to gain more traction.
To learn about a structure of an irresistible job advert from start to finish, read our eBook below!
