What the Advertisement Promises
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The first cause of first-week attrition is a job description that described a different job, and it is usually written by somebody who has never done it.
A person who leaves on day four was recruited on a promise that the operation could not keep. Most of those promises are in writing.
What adverts habitually get wrong
The rate, quoted at its maximum: a headline figure that includes a shift premium the person will not qualify for, or an attendance bonus with conditions.
The hours, described as flexible when the operation needs fixed shifts and mandatory overtime at peak.
The physical demand, omitted entirely. Lifting, walking distance, cold store, standing for ten hours.
The environment: an ambient warehouse and a chilled one are different jobs and are advertised identically.
And the progression, described in terms the operation cannot deliver within any timeframe the reader would assume.
Why it happens
Adverts are written to attract, and the labour market is tight.
Anything that reduces applications looks like a failure to whoever is measured on applications.
Which is the incentive problem from the previous note, expressed in copy.
Nobody is being dishonest. The measure rewards attracting people rather than attracting the right people, and those are different objectives.
The test worth applying
Would somebody who reads this advert, then does a full shift, feel they had been told the truth?
Ask a current employee who has done the job for six months to read it and say so.
They will be blunt, and the ten minutes it takes is the cheapest intervention in this whole collection.
What an honest advert contains
The base rate, and separately any premium with its condition.
The actual shift pattern, including the days.
Walking distance or lifting weight in concrete terms — a number, not "physically active role".
Temperature, where it is not ambient.
What the first week looks like.
And what the job is not, which filters more effectively than anything else and costs nothing.
The counter-argument, answered
"We will get fewer applications."
Yes, and more of them will still be there in a month.
The relevant figure is not applications but people present at ninety days per pound spent, and an honest advert improves it in every operation that has measured the change.
Test it: run the honest version on half the campaigns and compare the ninety-day figure. It is a cheap experiment and it settles the argument internally.
Screening that matches
If the job requires lifting, say the weight and ask whether the person is comfortable with it.
If it is a cold store, say the temperature and mention the clothing.
If the shift starts at six, confirm the person can reliably get there at six — transport is a leading cause of first-week attrition and is entirely predictable at interview.
None of this is selection on protected characteristics. It is telling people what the job involves and letting them decide.
Agency adverts
Where an agency recruits on your behalf, the advert is theirs and the attrition is yours.
Which means the advert copy belongs in the agency agreement, approved by you, with the same honesty standard.
Most operations have never read the advert their agency runs, and it is frequently the source of the first-week losses they are complaining about.
The application process itself
Long forms lose people who would have been fine.
A warehouse applicant is frequently applying on a phone, between shifts elsewhere, and a fifteen-minute form with an account registration loses most of them.
Name, number, availability, and a callback within a day converts far better than anything more thorough, and the thoroughness can happen at interview.
Measure drop-off by stage, which most applicant systems report and almost nobody looks at.
Where the applications come from
Referrals from current staff have the best retention of any source, consistently, in every operation that measures it.
Job boards are volume and variable quality.
Agencies are speed.
Track ninety-day survival by source, which is a simple field on the record and turns a spending decision into an evidenced one.
Most operations spend most of their budget on the source with the worst retention because it is the one with the fastest fill.