The Hiring Playbook · Part One · The Ad
Your ad is a sales document, not a job description. It has two jobs: pull in the people you want, and push away the ones you don't. Most ads fail at both, which is why most owners end up interviewing the wrong people for six weeks.
The Principle
The best people are not sitting on Seek refreshing the page. They already have a job, they're reasonably happy in it, and they are giving your ad about four seconds before they scroll. You are not writing a description of a role. You are interrupting someone's day.
Which means the ad has to do the same two things every good sales page does: make the right person lean in, and make the wrong person leave. If your ad could be sent to any candidate in your industry and still make sense, it isn't filtering anything — and you'll pay for that in your calendar six weeks from now.
Never hire someone to fill a gap. Hire someone who makes the team better. If you're not genuinely excited to make the offer, don't make it. One wrong hire costs more than three months of looking.
Step One
Everyone skips this and goes straight to the ad. Then they interview six people who can all technically do the job and none of whom they'd want in a client's house. Character is what you're actually hiring. Skills are what you're training.
Don't sit down and try to think of adjectives — you'll write "hardworking, reliable, team player" like everybody else. Work backwards from people you've already had instead. Answer these three and the traits fall out of them.
Think of the best person who's ever worked for you. What do they do that the others don't? Not their skills — their behaviour. How they handle a problem, what they do when nobody's watching, what they say when they've stuffed up.
Now the one that didn't work out. What was missing? It's almost never skill. It's usually ownership, honesty, or care. Whatever was missing is a non-negotiable on this hire.
What do you find yourself chasing every single week? The thing you're sick of repeating is the trait you're hiring for. If you chase timesheets, that's not admin — that's follow-through.
Rough notes are fine. Nobody sees this but you — it feeds the traits below and the AI prompt at the end.
These are written as behaviours on purpose — each one is something you could watch someone do or fail to do. Pick up to five. They go into the ad, and later into your scorecard.
Maximum five. The list locks once you've picked five, so you have to choose what actually matters.
0 of 5 chosen
Tickets, licences, systems, years. Only what's genuinely required on day one — every extra line costs you applicants.
Step Two
Every ad that pulls A-players has the same skeleton. You don't have to be a writer — you have to hit these eight in this order. The builder below does it for you, but read them once so you know what it's assembling.
If you only get one thing right, get the filter right — and put it early. Telling the wrong person to click off is what makes the right person feel chosen. It costs you nothing but applications you never wanted.
Step Three
On Seek a candidate sees four things: title, company, location, date. That's it. The title isn't the start of your ad — for most people it is your ad. Most owners write it like a spreadsheet field. Write it like a headline: emoji, the searchable job title, and the one thing they actually want.
Keep the words people actually search — the trade, the role, the ticket — or you won't appear. Then earn the click with the rest. The builder writes you four to A/B test.
Different industries, same skeleton. Read them as a candidate would, then notice what they share.
Step Four
Everything saves as you type. Nothing here is precious — rough answers produce a rough draft you can fix in two minutes, which is still faster than staring at a blank page. Anything you leave empty is simply left out of the ad.
Three or four honest lines. Credible beats corporate.
Use the words people actually type into Seek. Get clever in the rest of the title, not here.
Never "responsible for". Always "you'll own / run / lead / build".
Real numbers or the ad loses. "Competitive salary" reads as something to hide.
Tick what's genuinely true. One real perk beats six invented ones.
The most powerful part of the ad. Be specific and unapologetic — this is what makes the right person lean in.
Two steps, never one. The second step is your first round of screening and it costs you nothing.
Only promise what you'll actually do. Candidates talk, and slow silence is the most common complaint about hiring.
Pick the one that sounds like you talking. The wrong voice is worse than a plain one.
Your Ad
This is a real first draft, not a template with your name dropped in. Read it out loud once. Anything that doesn't sound like you, change — that's the whole job. Then copy it into Seek.
If the draft reads a bit stiff, this prompt gives an AI everything it needs to rewrite it in your voice — without letting it wander off and invent perks you never offered.
Read it on your phone first — that's where it'll be read. If the first screen doesn't contain a number and a reason to keep going, fix the top before you worry about the rest. And post it in your own network before Seek. The best people are already employed.