How to achieve recruitment advertising success

What drives recruitment advertising success in 2025?

To improve the quality and volume of applicants, focus on four core areas:

• Employer brand that reflects your real culture and values
• Job ads written for your target candidate (not written internally)
• Smart placement across the right channels (backed by data)
• Continuous optimisation using performance metrics and insights
  

In our latest recruitment advertising masterclass, Talos360 Tim Clifford shares all the latest tips you need to follow to achieve recruitment advertising success in 2026.

1. Start with your employer brand

Before a candidate applies, they will almost always check you out online. That means your recruitment advertising performance is directly tied to how your business shows up across the web. 

To build trust and increase conversion from “view” to “apply”, make sure you have:

• A well-maintained careers site (clear, up to date, easy to navigate)
• A strong and active LinkedIn presence
• A credible profile on review platforms like Glassdoor
• Consistent messaging across every candidate touchpoint
  

When your employer brand is clear and authentic, you’ll naturally attract candidates who align with your organisation, and want to work with you. It’s no coincidence 72% of recruiters agree that employer brand has a significant impact on your hiring outcomes. 

2. Write job ads for your ideal candidate

The best-performing job ads speak directly to the person you want to hire. To do that, you must first identify your ideal candidate profile, then shape the content around what matters to them. 

What to include in high-performing job ads

A strong job ad should clearly communicate:

• The role purpose (why the job exists)
• Always include the salary
• The skills and behaviours needed to succeed
• The benefits a candidate can expect
• Flexible working opportunities
• The culture and values they’ll experience day-to-day

Keep your candidate in mind

StandoutCV found that candidates will have to submit an average 162 job applications before landing a job. So, with so many applications per day, candidates aren’t studying each advert; they’re skimming. 

To improve the readability of your ads and reduce drop-offs:

• Use clear headings and short sections
• Avoid jargon and internal language
• Stick to plain English
• Make key information easy to find quickly

Keep requirements focused

Long requirement lists reduce applications — even when candidates are capable of doing the job. As a rule of thumb, aim for 6–8 key requirements. The goal is to screen in, not screen out.

3. Make your job ads inclusive 

Inclusivity isn’t a “nice to have”. It directly impacts the size and quality of your talent pool. To achieve job advertising success, you must:

Use gender-neutral language

Many organisations still unintentionally use gendered language that can discourage applications. Tools like ChatGPT can help identify and replace biased wording quickly, helping you appeal to a broader and more diverse audience.

Be transparent about salary

Salary transparency is one of the biggest drivers of application volume. Research shows 55% of candidates are unlikely to apply if salary isn’t included.

To improve performance:

• Include a clear salary range
• Avoid vague terms like “competitive” or “salary negotiable”
• Make it easy for candidates to understand what’s on offer

4. Place job ads where the right candidates actually are 

Even the best-written job ad won’t perform if it’s in the wrong place. Visibility on your ads is important, but targeted visibility is essential. If you’re after the best talent, you need to place your ads where they’ll find them. 

Use your hiring data to guide placement

AI-powered applicant tracking systems like Talos ATS will provide detailed hiring data you can use to optimise your recruitment advertising strategy to ensure success, including:

• Where your best candidates come from
• Which channels deliver quality applicants
• Cost-per-application and cost-per-hire by platform
• ROI across job boards and campaigns

ATS features like Talent Analytics can also give you real-time talent insights that show you where your ideal candidates are likely looking for roles, and where you should advertise your roles. 

Choose channels strategically

In 2025, 2,178,755 applications in Talos ATS were sourced from Indeed, the clear leader for UK job boards. If you’re to see any kind of recruitment advertising success, you must have your ads appear on the right channels. 

But what if Indeed isn’t quite right for you? Here is a list of the most popular sources of candidate applications through Talos ATS in 2025:

• Indeed – 2,178,755 applications
• Career Page – 540,927 applications
• LinkedIn – 296,679 applications 
• Total Jobs – 115,918 applications
• CV Library – 74,148 applications

Multi-posting improves efficiency

Talos ATS’s multiposting feature helps you distribute roles across platforms quickly, while keeping your tracking and reporting clean. Ideal for volume hiring, multiposters allow you to share your job description far and wide, putting your role in front of more potential candidates. 

How to ensure recruitment advertising success

There are several ways you can ensure your recruitment advertising processes attract the best talent. There are our first four key steps to ensure success when advertising on job boards:

• Showcase your employer brand
• Write job adverts for your ideal candidate
• Make your job adverts inclusive 
• Place your job adverts in the right places

5. Differentiate your job offer

You’re not the only organisation after top talent. Your recruitment advertising success depends on your ability to differentiate your offer and state clear reasons why a candidate would want to join your business over another. 

Identify what makes your organisation different

Strong differentiators often include:

• Pay and progression opportunities
• Flexible working
• Benefits package
• Culture and leadership style
• Development and training opportunities

Use employee insight to shape your message

When it comes to showcasing why your organisation is better than the rest, your strongest promoters are your people. Employee surveys, engagement polls and employee testimonials are great examples of ways your people can share what they value most about working for you, and those insights can become your strongest recruitment messaging.

6. Use tone and emotion to drive action

The most effective job ads don’t just inform, they motivate candidates and encourage action. A few ways to increase your recruitment advertising response rate are to:

• Create a sense of belonging (“Join us”, “Be part of the journey”)
• Use clear calls to action (“Apply now”)
• Focus on the candidate (“You’ll have the opportunity to…”) instead of “We are looking for…”

7. Optimise the candidate experience

Your recruitment advertising doesn’t just end at the job ad; it continues throughout your recruitment process. Every interaction you have with a candidate contributes to their impression of your organisation and will contribute to their final decision. 

To improve candidate experience at the very beginning of your hiring processes, you must: 

• Ensure your careers site is mobile-friendly
• Remove unnecessary steps in the application journey
• Keep the process fast, simple, and consistent
• Make it easy to navigate roles and apply quickly
  

8. Use technology and automation to improve quality and efficiency

Internal recruitment teams are under pressure to deliver more with less, and that’s where autonomous hiring technology like Talos ATS becomes a competitive advantage.

Use talent analytics to make smarter decisions

Talos360’s applicant tracking feature, Talent Analytics, provides users with real-time candidate insights, so HR teams have all the data they need before they post job adverts. With predictive analytics, Talos360 can provide insights into:

• Salary benchmarking
• Candidate availability by location
• Channel performance and sourcing insights
• Role competitiveness in the market

Candidate assessments are becoming essential

With AI-generated CVs and applications becoming more common, skills-based hiring strategies and candidate assessments are here to assist. Using candidate assessments, HR teams can:

• Validate skills fairly
• Improve quality of hire
• Reduce hiring costs
• Lower employee turnover

AI interview insights can reduce admin time

Following a successful recruitment advertising process, you can use AI tools to ensure the rest of our recruitment processes are efficient. Talos360’s AI interview transcription feature, Interview Insights feature helps to record and transcribe interviews, allowing hiring managers to focus on conversations and reduce hiring admin. 

How to successfully advertise in recruitment with Talos ATS

This list offers the latest tips on how to achieve recruitment advertising success, but ultimately, the right technology is the key to helping you hire faster, fairer, and more consistently.

 Leveraging technology and data can significantly improve hiring outcomes through candidate insights and AI tools for HR. With Talos360’s autonomous applicant tracking system, organisations can successfully advertise across the most popular job boards, screen and assess candidates, ensure unbiased recruitment practices, interview candidates and onboard potential new hires in one system.

Investing in the right talent, technology and following these tips to drive recruitment advertising success will ensure you improve the quality of candidates, reduce drop-off, and build a talent acquisition strategy that’s ready for anything.

The platform includes:

• CV screening tools
• Multi-job boards poster
• In-built careers site builder
• Tools to help you define your employer brand and EVP
• AI job advert writing assistant
• Unbiased, science-based candidate assessments
• Automated reference checking, including DBS checks
• Remote interviewing software
• Intelligent interview insights
• Employee onboarding suite
• Real-time, AI-powered talent analytics 

Check out the easy way to attract and hire compatible candidates: