In today's webinar, "Would You Apply to Your Job Posting?" I talked about the importance of putting yourself in the candidate's shoes when creating and evaluating your job postings. You need to ask yourself if you are portraying your opportunity and your organization in a way that would make you hit the Apply button. Your job postings play a major role in your online candidate acquisition. The quality of your job postings will determine the quality of the candidates who respond. Your time is valuable and most likely scarce, but by taking the time to create a great posting initially, you’ll attract those excellent candidates from the start!

Before I started working at PracticeLink, I spent several months in job-search mode. I read hundreds of job descriptions and looked at dozens of companies' career pages. After a while I developed a major job-posting turnoff: stock photos.

I recently started following a popular Twitter feed called Advice to Writers. It's just what it sounds like, a stream of inspirational tips from professional writers to aspiring writers. Since I've been following the feed, I've noticed a common theme throughout the writers' advice: They advise editing ruthlessly. They advise weeding out the very words you worked so hard to choose, all in the name of making a point clear. (Stephen King calls this "killing your darlings.")

Writing a great job posting isn't always an easy task. For a busy physician recruiter though, it’s worth it to spend a little extra time and effort on the job posting if you want to attract the best of the best candidates. You need to get their attention quickly and provide a meaty description to attract the ideal candidate. Here are some guidelines that might help you stand out from the competition.