Advertising an Agricultural Job: How to Approach It

10 March 2023

Finding staff to fill agricultural jobs is getting harder and this publication is the third in a series that gives helpful hints and tips on how to approach the advertising of an agricultural job. Other publications in this series include: ‘A Website for your Farm - Why and How’ and ‘Eye catching Agricultural Job Adverts – How to Create them’

Advert Location - Local

There are a range of local advertising platforms that can work well:

- Local news sites either web based or on social media. An example of this type of platform is Dumfries and Galloway What’s Going On which has a website, Facebook page and free weekly newsletter.

- Local newspapers can be a lower cost option of print advertising.

- The programme of local agricultural shows can be another good advertising vehicle if your job vacancy falls at the correct time of year.

- Placing a printed copy of your advert in agricultural stores in the nearby area.

Advert Location - National

If you are aiming for your advert to reach those out with the local area, you may wish to place an advert in a printed Scotland wide or National Farming Paper. This option does cost more so it might not be feasible to pay to publish a colourful advert in large agricultural newspapers but with a farm website or social media page hosting your colourful advert, a simple advert could be placed in a print newspaper and good quality candidates will go and search out further information using online searches when they should uncover your attractive advert.

Using Social Media to Advertise

This is a method that should not be relied on as the reach you receive can be very variable based on algorithms within the social media platforms. This method of advertising has a different requirement and can often be very image based so there are some key things that it is useful to know about advertising via social media.

Twitter is not a platform that should be used for advertising.
Instagram is based on imagery and would be where your advert image created in Canva (as described in the ‘Eye catching Agricultural Job Adverts – How to Create them’ publication) would come in very handy. However, it will only be effective if you have an up to date account and post regularly. Therefore, if you have only just created your farm social media and do not have posts built up or a follower base then advertising through this channel is not going to be very successful and it would be advised that you pursue other methods of advertising.
If you choose to use Facebook for advertising, remember this is not a business site. However, the best areas to place an advert would be on farming forums or Farming Facebook groups or your farm business Facebook page as these will reach a greater audience. Writing a post on your personal page will have a limited reach and is not a method that should be relied upon. Facebook has complicated algorithms in place so any post you prepare needs effort to reach a wide enough audience. Therefore, writing a post that only contains text and is posted to your personal page is not going to get far enough to get a range of applicants in the current testing times for farm recruitment.

Online Recruitment Portals

Advertising online via dedicated recruitments sites is a method of advertising that can reach a varied applicant pool. The cheapest online recruitment portal is Indeed at a rate of around £60 for a month-long advert. S1 jobs or Reed would be next on the list at £250 while Agri specific sites are much more expensive and will cost you £450 at the very minimum.

How to Take Action and Key Messages

Identify which local platforms you can use for advertising at no or low cost.
If you need a particular specialism or a wider pool of applications, you are likely to need to pay money for advertising. Identify how much you can spend on advertising.
Do not rely on social media for advertising.