Target character
In 1980, not long after graduating college, Di Lillo sat at a desk to write his first employment advertisement. City Visitor Inc., a
publisher of in-room visitor’s guides and specialty travel publications, had really taken off, and the founder needed someone
to deliver the magazine to 145 hotels throughout Northeast
Ohio.
For inspiration, he started flipping through the employment
section of a local newspaper. What he found were monotonous
blurbs detailing requirements and responsibilities.
“None of them seemed to appeal to anything to me,” he says.
“They were just boring and not exciting.”
Instead of mirroring those ads, Di Lillo reflected upon those
characteristics he wanted in the future employee.
“I said, ‘What do I want in the delivery person for this company?’” he says. “I started to write down ‘friendly, dependable,
courteous and knowledgeable of the area.’ I made a big circle
around them, and I put ‘postman.’ At that time in my life, the
postman was dependable, always friendly and courteous.
“I ran an ad that said, ‘Looking for a part-time delivery person,’ and I described the characteristics. Then I put, ‘Ideal
opportunity for retired postman.’ I think I had 26 responses,
and I had a postman do this for the first 10 years.”
When writing an employment ad, Di Lillo says to clarify what
you want in a candidate. Don’t just list the job’s requirements
and responsibilities. If you want a certain personality to fill the
role, then ask for it.
“I would be less afraid to talk about the soft issues,” he says.
“We say, ‘We’re looking for people who want to be part of a
winning team and will join us in the effort with hard work and
camaraderie to excel in what we do.’ Would those be things
that you would like to have? If that’s what you want, why
wouldn’t you ask for that?”
In other words, focus on the characteristics of the person
whom you want to fill the job and not the characteristics of the
job itself.
“In the hiring process, most companies just start listing what
the job is about,” he says. “If you find something that says ‘editor’ or ‘salesperson,’ you don’t have to say too much more
about that. Applicants already know what that means.”
Skill sets should never be the sole criterion for a potential
candidate’s eligibility. Di Lillo says you can always increase an
employee’s expertise through training. Behavior, on the other
hand, is a completely different story.
“It’s really three components to what people can bring to the
table,” he says. “They have their character, they have their
experience, and they have their behaviors. I can do something
about the experience. I can teach a salesperson or a secretary
to answer a phone, but I can’t really impact your character, and
it’s hard to change your behaviors.”
When you write ads that emphasize character, not only are
you targeting candidates who have the desired attributes, but
you are also screening for people who value those all-important “soft issues.”
“You don’t have to be a fisherman to know if you want wall-eye, if you want pike or if you want trout, you have to use different bait,” Di Lillo says. “They all bite and nibble on the
things that are important to them. I decided I wanted people
with character, with strong beliefs, good work ethics, and had
good values and belief systems. I wrote that and spoke about
those issues.
“Now, if I wrote an ad like everybody else did in the paper,
that means I could get whatever was out there. But I wanted to
find a way to have a selection process. I wrote ads that
appealed to the characteristics that were important to build a
great organization, and it worked.”
Di Lillo says that writing a great employment ad does take
some time. It’s not a matter of churning out whatever pops into
your head. But if you reflect upon the attributes that will best
serve your company and culture, the hour you devote on the
front end will be offset by the years of a great team member’s
service in the long run.
“I guess people try to do it, but I don’t know if they take
enough time,” he says. “They just think you put any ad in the
paper and magically the right people will show up. They forget
what’s important, and they focus on what’s busy. Take time to
understand, analyze and invest in that process.”