Typography

Try following: find some official document or letter that you have in your computer (could be contract, e-mail, etc.). Probably you wrote it by using Times New Roman or Arial font, i.e. font types that are usually used for such official letters. Now mark the whole text with Ctrl-A and change the font style to Bradley Hand ITC or Forte. You can also try to change the color (use whatever color you’d like except dark colors) and the size (anything bigger than 12 pts is fine) of the text. How does it feel? Does it still feel like an official document?

With the above-stated example I wanted to show you that font style, size and color create some certain associations in readers. This means that preparing a job advertisement you must consider not only pictures and contents but also typography that you are using so that it could support the message that you want to deliver to your readers.

Let us now take a look now to Kuursaal’s (well-known tavern in Pärnu) job advertisement where they are looking for waiter/sales pro. In addition to quite witty approach to recruitment (stating that the person is ‘wanted’ not that we are hiring, recruiting, etc.), their job advertisement looks attractive, stylish and rises some associations in readers.

Font style: in this ad Kuursaal has used variety of western-type font styles (for example Book Type) that helps the readers to capture the nature of the tavern. When you take a look to their homepage you can see that the selection of this font style is not random. Background, which looks like on an old authentic paper, shows that they have been thinking the whole thing thru. So all in all, the message and stylistics, font style, layout – they all support each other and make the job advertisement whole.

Readability of the ad: to make the ad easier to read and to stress whom they are looking, Kuursaal has used capital letters.

But be careful, when using capital letters. Generally it is not recommended to use them in text that is longer than one line. This is because that we are used to read (small)letters and we are able to read them faster and understand them better. In addition, the contours of the letter generate certain visual perception in the brain, so that we actually do not need to read all letters one by one, since we already know what word it is. But allegedly we do not have same perception in reading capital letters. To illustrate that claim I looked up one post that just recently circulated in Facebook:

“I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.”

What is particularly heartwarming in that job advertisement is the promise that company will give a personal feedback to all candidates. In fact, this is exactly the kind of statement that creates a positive image of the company.

Takeaways:

- Use the same typographical elements in your job advertisement that you have used in your website or in other advertisements that you use for your products or service

- To emphasize your message you can use either CAPS or bold. But beware not to overuse them.

- Add to your job ad the information whether and when candidates get feedback. If you feel that you cannot give feedback to all candidates then point that also out, then people do not mind so much if they don’t get it. If you are confident that you can contact all candidates then make sure that you fulfill your promise.