Post a job · Advert wording · Why advertise here
What people ask before they apply
This is not a rule and it does not stop anything publishing. It is the list of things a driver or a warehouse applicant is going to ring and ask, so that the advert can do that phone call once instead of forty times.
Where this came from
We read a lot of driving adverts on other boards. The good ones were not better written than anybody else's. They were better answered. One of them said, in a plain list: no handball, no roll cages, start times between two and eleven with the window planned in advance, four on four off, maximum six points. Another said ten hour pay guarantee, breaks paid, no nights out, curtainside, occasional pallet truck work.
There is nothing clever in either of those. Both simply answered, in writing, the questions the applicant was going to ask anyway. Most adverts do not, and then the employer wonders why half the applicants drop out on the phone.
Driving work
Is there any handball?
The first thing a Class 1 driver looks for and the thing most adverts leave out. To a lot of drivers, no handball is worth more than an extra fifty pence an hour, and they will take a lower paid advert that says so over a higher paid one that does not.
Am I home every night?
This is the question that decides whether somebody with children can take the job at all. An advert that is silent on it is read as nights out by anybody who cannot do nights out.
What time does the shift start?
A window, and whether it is planned in advance, matters more than the hour itself. Somebody on a school run needs to know if today's two o'clock can become tomorrow's five.
What is the shift pattern?
Four on four off and Monday to Friday are different jobs to the same driver, and one of them rules them out.
What is the work and what am I pulling?
Curtainside and multi-drop are not the same trade. Naming it brings the drivers who want that work and filters out the ones who would leave in a fortnight.
Are my hours guaranteed?
A ten hour guarantee is the difference between a wage somebody can plan a mortgage around and a wage they cannot. It is also cheap to offer on work that runs long anyway. BLOCK BOOKINGS count too: in this trade that is the word for shifts booked ahead, and it answers the question as squarely as a guarantee does.
Are breaks paid?
Half an hour a shift across a week is most of a shift's pay. Drivers work it out, and an advert that stays quiet about it is assumed to mean unpaid.
Will I actually be accepted?
Months of experience and the number of penalty points you will accept, or the two words that open an advert up: NEW PASSES WELCOME. The adverts we have read that say it put it in the headline, and they are right to, because every advert that stays quiet is read as refusing. Either way it saves an applicant a wasted hour and saves you a phone call, and leaving them out is how an advert collects fifty applications and one eligible driver.
Warehouse work
Is it chilled, frozen or ambient?
Minus twenty is a different job from a dry warehouse, and somebody who has done it knows exactly what they are agreeing to. Somebody who has not should find out from the advert and not on the first morning.
What are the hours and the shift pattern?
Twilight, nights and four on four off suit completely different lives. Saying which one you have is how you reach the people it suits.
Is there a pick rate or a target?
Somebody who has worked to a rate before wants to know the number. Somebody who has not deserves to be told there is one. Either way it is the thing that decides whether they last a month.
What will I be driving or using?
A reach ticket and a counterbalance ticket are not interchangeable, and asking for the wrong one wastes everybody's morning. If no ticket is needed, say that too, because it widens the field.
How heavy is the lifting?
A weight in kilograms is a fact somebody can judge for themselves. "Must be physically fit" is not, and it is also the wording we hold under the Equality Act because it screens out disabled applicants without describing any actual task.
Are breaks paid?
Same arithmetic as driving. Over a week it is most of a shift, and silence is read as unpaid.
Are the hours guaranteed, and for how long?
Ongoing, seasonal and temp to perm are three different offers. Peak work is honest work and people take it gladly when it is called what it is.
Where exactly, and can I get there for that shift?
A six o'clock start at a site with no bus before seven is not a job for anybody without a car. Say where it is and what gets you there.
Saying the unwelcome answer still counts
Our software reads an advert and tells the advertiser which of these it has not covered. It does not care what the answer is. An advert that says there is handball all shift counts as answered exactly the same as one that says there is none, because both told the reader what they were walking into. Choosing between them is the reader's job, not ours.
Work that is hard, cold, or seasonal is still honest work, and people take it gladly when it is called what it is. What loses you a worker in week two is finding out on the first morning.
One of these is also a legal point
Give the lifting as a weight, not as a person. Lifting up to 25kg repeatedly through a shift is a fact somebody can judge for themselves. Must be physically fit is not a description of any task, it is a description of a person, and it is one of the phrases we hold under the Equality Act because it screens out disabled applicants without meaning to. The full list of what we refuse and why is on advert wording.