# aronv

> Recruitment marketing playbooks by Aron Veraart: how to write job ads people actually read, reach people who aren't looking, fix your apply flow and find the leaks in your hiring funnel. Free templates, prompts and scripts.

Written by Aron Veraart. Every article, tutorial, AI prompt and glossary term is also available as Markdown: add .md to its URL.

## About the author

Aron Veraart is a recruitment marketer and the founder of Jobfuel (https://jobfuel.co/), where recruitment ads are run for companies or companies run them themselves on the Jobfuel platform. About page: https://aronv.com/about

Concepts coined on this site: post and pray, the Applicant Equation ((Dream Job × Belief) ÷ (Time to Apply × Effort & Risk)), the belief gap, the cliché tax, good friction vs. bad friction, the job scroller, day in the job, funnel leak and AI visibility for employers. Each has its own glossary page below.

## Blog

- [What ChatGPT Says About You as an Employer (and How to Check It in 20 Minutes)](https://aronv.com/blog/what-chatgpt-says-about-you.md): Candidates ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini about employers before they apply. Run these 5 prompts, log the results, then fix what the AI gets wrong.
- [Your Next Applicant Is a Bot: Why Smarter Friction Beats More Filters](https://aronv.com/blog/your-next-applicant-is-a-bot.md): AI tools let candidates apply to dozens of jobs at once. Here's why longer forms make it worse, and 100 good-friction questions you can copy into your form.
- [The Cliché Tax: What Every Cliché in Your Job Ad Costs You](https://aronv.com/blog/the-cliche-tax.md): Phrases like dynamic team and competitive salary cost you candidates. The 15 most common job ad clichés, what people hear, and how to rewrite each one.
- [Stop Writing Job Ads for Job Seekers: How to Write Feed Ads for Passive Candidates](https://aronv.com/blog/stop-writing-for-job-seekers.md): Most people you want to hire aren't looking. How to write feed ads for passive candidates, with 10 hooks, 5 low-commitment CTAs and a feed ad template.
- [The Hiring Funnel Leak Map: Find Where You Lose Candidates Before You Spend More](https://aronv.com/blog/hiring-funnel-leak-map.md): Not enough applicants? Don't raise the budget yet. Map the 9 steps of your hiring funnel, find the biggest leak and fix that first. Diagnosis sheet included.
- [The Job Ad Scorecard: 10 Checks to Score Any Job Ad Out of 100](https://aronv.com/blog/job-ad-scorecard.md): Score any job ad out of 100 with 10 simple checks, from salary to apply time. Includes a copy-paste scorecard table and an AI prompt that scores it for you.
- [What Liquid Death Would Do With a Nursing Vacancy: 5 Consumer Brand Moves for Job Ads](https://aronv.com/blog/liquid-death-nursing-vacancy.md): A thought experiment. Five moves from Liquid Death's public marketing, applied to a hard-to-fill nursing job, with 3 ad concepts and a worksheet you can copy.
- [The Applicant Equation: The Math Every Candidate Does Before Applying](https://aronv.com/blog/the-applicant-equation.md): Every candidate does the same math before applying. Learn the Applicant Equation, what to change in each part, a before and after, and a prompt to score any job ad.

## Tutorials

Step-by-step guides; each lists its level, time and the tools you need. Overview: https://aronv.com/tutorials

- [How to Test 5 Job Titles for Under €200](https://aronv.com/tutorials/job-title-ab-test.md): Run a simple job title test on Meta. Same image, same text, five titles, equal budget. Learn what to measure and how to tell a real winner from luck.
- [How to Turn a List of Duties Into "A Day in the Job"](https://aronv.com/tutorials/day-in-the-job.md): Swap your list of duties for a real day in the role. A 15-minute interview with 6 questions, a paragraph template, and a before/after example.
- [The 10-Second Mobile Test](https://aronv.com/tutorials/10-second-mobile-test.md): Open your job ad on your phone, look for 10 seconds, and write down what you saw. A quick test with 3 outsiders and a checklist for the top of your ad.
- [How to Cut Your Must-Haves to Three](https://aronv.com/tutorials/three-must-haves.md): An intake script for the hiring manager that cuts a long requirements list to three real must-haves, plus answers for pushback and a line to copy.
- [How to Get Your Application Under 5 Minutes](https://aronv.com/tutorials/application-under-5-minutes.md): Apply to your own job on your phone with a timer, list every field, and cut what you don't need before the first conversation. Includes fields that can go.

## AI Prompts

Copy-paste AI prompts for recruiters, collected from the articles. Overview: https://aronv.com/prompts

- [The 5 AI employer audit prompts](https://aronv.com/prompts/ai-employer-audit.md): from "What ChatGPT Says About You as an Employer (and How to Check It in 20 Minutes)"
- [Cliché hunter prompt](https://aronv.com/prompts/cliche-hunter.md): from "The Cliché Tax: What Every Cliché in Your Job Ad Costs You"
- [Job ad scorecard prompt](https://aronv.com/prompts/job-ad-scorecard.md): from "The Job Ad Scorecard: 10 Checks to Score Any Job Ad Out of 100"
- [Applicant Equation prompt](https://aronv.com/prompts/applicant-equation.md): from "The Applicant Equation: The Math Every Candidate Does Before Applying"

## Recruitment Marketing Glossary

Plain-English definitions of recruitment marketing terms. Overview: https://aronv.com/glossary

### Core Concepts

- [Recruitment marketing](https://aronv.com/glossary/recruitment-marketing.md): Using marketing to get the right people to see a job, want it and apply, instead of just posting a vacancy and waiting for someone to show up.
- [Job marketing](https://aronv.com/glossary/job-marketing.md): Marketing one specific job like a product, with a clear audience, one message that makes them stop, and a funnel that takes them from seeing it to applying.
- [Post and pray](https://aronv.com/glossary/post-and-pray.md): Putting a vacancy online, on your site or a job board, and then just hoping the right person finds it and applies. No audience, no message, no plan.
- [Employer brand](https://aronv.com/glossary/employer-brand.md): What people think and say about you as a place to work. You have one whether you manage it or not, built from reviews, ads, word of mouth and how you treat candidates.
- [Employer Value Proposition (EVP)](https://aronv.com/glossary/employer-value-proposition.md): The honest answer to one question: why would someone good work here instead of somewhere else? The specific deal you offer people, in exchange for their work.
- [Candidate experience](https://aronv.com/glossary/candidate-experience.md): How it feels to go through your hiring process, from the first ad someone sees to the last email they get, whether they're hired or not.
- [Applicant Equation](https://aronv.com/glossary/applicant-equation.md): The math every candidate does before applying: (Dream Job × Belief) ÷ (Time to Apply × Effort & Risk). Raise what's on top, shrink what's below, and more good people apply.
- [Belief gap](https://aronv.com/glossary/belief-gap.md): When a good candidate reads your job ad and decides they won't get the job anyway, so they never apply. The people you want quietly filter themselves out.
- [Cliché tax](https://aronv.com/glossary/cliche-tax.md): What you lose every time your job ad uses a phrase that could be in any job ad, like 'dynamic team' or 'competitive salary'. Every cliché is a spot where a real fact could have been.
- [Good friction](https://aronv.com/glossary/good-friction.md): Friction in an application that filters for real interest, like one specific question about the job. Bad friction, like accounts and cover letters, only scares good people away.

### Candidates

- [Active candidate](https://aronv.com/glossary/active-candidate.md): Someone who is looking for a job right now. They search job boards, set alerts and compare vacancies, so they're in a searching mood, not a scrolling one.
- [Passive candidate](https://aronv.com/glossary/passive-candidate.md): Someone who isn't looking for a job, but would switch for the right offer. They won't find your vacancy on a job board, so it has to find them.
- [Job scroller](https://aronv.com/glossary/job-scroller.md): A passive candidate who sees your job in their social feed while not looking for one. They're scrolling, not searching, so the ad has to make them stop first.
- [Talent pool](https://aronv.com/glossary/talent-pool.md): The people who showed interest in working for you before, like past applicants, silver medalists and people who signed up for job alerts, who you can reach again later.
- [Ghosting](https://aronv.com/glossary/ghosting.md): When a candidate or an employer stops responding in the middle of a hiring process, without saying why. It happens on both sides, and it hurts both sides.
- [Mass applying](https://aronv.com/glossary/mass-applying.md): Applying to lots of jobs at once with little attention to each one, more and more often with AI tools that fill in forms and write answers automatically.

### Job Ads & Applying

- [Job ad vs. job description](https://aronv.com/glossary/job-ad-vs-job-description.md): The job description defines the role for internal use. The job ad sells the job to the people you want. Most companies post the description and call it an ad.
- [Day in the job](https://aronv.com/glossary/day-in-the-job.md): Describing a real day in the role, what someone actually does from morning to end of shift, instead of listing duties and responsibilities in a job ad.
- [Pay transparency](https://aronv.com/glossary/pay-transparency.md): Showing the salary or pay range in the job ad itself, so candidates know what a job pays before they apply. It's increasingly required by law, not just a nice extra.
- [Careers page](https://aronv.com/glossary/careers-page.md): The part of your website where candidates go to check if they actually want to work for you. It's where your open jobs live, and where people look for proof.
- [Apply flow](https://aronv.com/glossary/apply-flow.md): Every step between a candidate thinking 'I want this' and their application being sent: every click, page, field, upload and login in between.
- [Mobile apply](https://aronv.com/glossary/mobile-apply.md): Applying for a job from a phone. For lots of roles, the phone is where people first see your job, so if the application doesn't work there, it doesn't really work.
- [Quick apply](https://aronv.com/glossary/quick-apply.md): Applying with a profile or details you already have, like a job board profile or saved CV, in one or two taps, without filling in a long form.
- [Knockout question](https://aronv.com/glossary/knockout-question.md): A question in an application that automatically disqualifies someone based on their answer, like 'Do you have a valid driver's license?' for a delivery job.

### Advertising

- [Job board](https://aronv.com/glossary/job-board.md): A website where companies post their vacancies and job seekers go to search for them, like the classic jobs section, but online.
- [Job aggregator](https://aronv.com/glossary/job-aggregator.md): A job search site that collects vacancies from many sources, like careers pages and job boards, and shows them in one place.
- [Google for Jobs](https://aronv.com/glossary/google-for-jobs.md): Google's job search feature that shows vacancies right in the search results, pulled from pages that use JobPosting structured data.
- [JobPosting structured data](https://aronv.com/glossary/jobposting-structured-data.md): A piece of code on your vacancy page that tells Google what the job is, so it can show up in Google's job search results.
- [Programmatic job advertising](https://aronv.com/glossary/programmatic-job-advertising.md): Software that spreads your job ad budget across many job sites automatically, and keeps moving money to wherever it performs best.
- [Meta lead ads](https://aronv.com/glossary/meta-lead-ads.md): Ads on Facebook and Instagram with a form that opens inside the app, partly filled in already, so people can respond without visiting your site.
- [Special Ad Category](https://aronv.com/glossary/special-ad-category.md): Meta's label for job, housing and financial ads. For job ads it limits targeting on age, gender and location, and lookalike audiences aren't available.
- [Retargeting](https://aronv.com/glossary/retargeting.md): Showing ads to people who already interacted with you, like visiting your vacancy page or starting an application, to bring them back.
- [Lookalike audience](https://aronv.com/glossary/lookalike-audience.md): An ad audience the platform builds of people who resemble a group you give it, like past applicants or hires. Not available for Meta job ads under the Special Ad Category.
- [Creative fatigue](https://aronv.com/glossary/creative-fatigue.md): When the same ad has been shown to the same people so often that they stop noticing it, and the results slowly get worse.
- [Hook rate](https://aronv.com/glossary/hook-rate.md): The share of people who keep watching the first few seconds of your video ad after it shows up. It tells you if your opening stops the scroll.
- [Click-through rate](https://aronv.com/glossary/click-through-rate.md): The percentage of people who saw your ad and clicked on it. Shortened to CTR. It shows whether your ad makes people curious enough to look.
- [CPM](https://aronv.com/glossary/cpm.md): Cost per mille: what you pay for 1,000 impressions of your ad. It tells you how expensive it is to get in front of your audience, not if the ad works.

### Metrics

- [Apply rate](https://aronv.com/glossary/apply-rate.md): The percentage of people who view your job ad and then actually apply. Also called click-to-apply rate. It shows how well the ad and the apply flow convert.
- [Application completion rate](https://aronv.com/glossary/application-completion-rate.md): The percentage of people who start your application and actually finish it. It shows how much your form or apply flow is losing you.
- [Drop-off rate](https://aronv.com/glossary/drop-off-rate.md): The percentage of people who leave at a specific step of your hiring funnel instead of moving on to the next one.
- [Funnel leak](https://aronv.com/glossary/funnel-leak.md): The step in your hiring funnel where you lose the most good people. Fixing it first usually beats spending more budget at the top.
- [Cost per applicant](https://aronv.com/glossary/cost-per-applicant.md): What you spend on attracting candidates divided by the number of applications you get. Often shortened to CPA.
- [Cost per qualified applicant](https://aronv.com/glossary/cost-per-qualified-applicant.md): What you spend on attracting candidates divided by the number of applicants who actually meet your criteria. It matters more than cost per applicant.
- [Cost per hire](https://aronv.com/glossary/cost-per-hire.md): The total cost of filling a role divided by the number of hires, including ads, tools, agency fees and the time your own team spends on it.
- [Time to fill](https://aronv.com/glossary/time-to-fill.md): The number of days between opening a vacancy and a candidate accepting the offer. It measures how long a role stays empty from the company's side.
- [Time to hire](https://aronv.com/glossary/time-to-hire.md): The number of days between a candidate entering your process, like applying, and accepting your offer. It shows how fast you move once you've found someone.
- [Speed to lead](https://aronv.com/glossary/speed-to-lead.md): How fast you contact someone after they apply or leave their details. The faster you call, the more likely they still remember you and pick up.

### Tools & AI

- [Applicant tracking system](https://aronv.com/glossary/applicant-tracking-system.md): Software that collects your applications and tracks every candidate through your hiring process, from applying to hired. Usually called an ATS.
- [AI recruiting agent](https://aronv.com/glossary/ai-recruiting-agent.md): AI software that does recruitment tasks on its own, like writing and launching job ads, screening applicants or scheduling interviews, instead of just answering questions.
- [AI visibility for employers](https://aronv.com/glossary/ai-visibility-for-employers.md): How AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity describe you as an employer, and whether they mention you at all when candidates ask about jobs.

## Optional

- [All articles in one file](https://aronv.com/llms-full.txt)
- [RSS feed](https://aronv.com/rss.xml)