Your job description is a selling tool. It can lead straight to the top candidates you want, or it can kill your search before it has barely begun. Like any marketing, a job description that does its job is about benefits, not features. And since today’s “customers” (candidates) want and expect personalization and choice, your job description must also show flexibility.
A great job description tells a story to entice candidate interest, then sells them on the position. So why are your job announcements falling flat?
You’re Putting Them Off Instead of Drawing Them In
Typically, HR staff write job descriptions. They’re busy, so they used recycled or boilerplate language. They don’t take time to consult the manager or C-level leader who will oversee the position. You get a generic job description with the weight of a novel, filled with long lists of professional and personal requirements. Detailed, exacting requirements. It’s all about you -- what the company wants and expects -- and frankly, it’s sort of intimidating. Worse, too much detail weeds out good people.
And speaking of details, it’s shocking how many published job descriptions contain typos and other inexcusable mistakes. This is sloppy. It says negative things about your company – lack of professionalism, for example. Candidates will be impressed, but not in the way you want.
Great Job Description, Great Candidates
At Power-4, before we get to work reaching out and vetting candidates, we work with clients to vet their job descriptions. Our goal? To set you up for success by creating a sharp, appealing message that succinctly explains who you hope to attract with this search. Developing a candidate persona allows you to create a job description from your ideal candidate’s perspective. That makes it easy for them to see how your position aligns with their background, skillset, and desired next-step role and responsibilities.
To re-shape the job description, we ask tough questions:
- Who will be successful in this role, and why?
- Describe your team make-up, experience levels and how people work together.
- In the future, how will you know this person was a great hire?
We’ll talk you through the “who and what” until we arrive at a distilled, accurate description – the essence of the job – three or four priority components, not the dozen that might have been in the original document.
You want inquiries, so your job description must inspire good candidates to follow up. It’s both an art and a science because every job is a multi-dimensional experience that includes physical, mental, and psychological factors. The science is the factual side – the hard skills required for the job, what the candidate will do in the role and what they need to bring to succeed. The art is the personal side – who they are and how well they’ll fit into your cultural environment.
Key ingredients of an alluring job description:
- Who you are as an organization. What you do, yes, but why your work is important. How will their role impact your company and its future? Especially if it’s a tech or life sciences position, is your working environment cutting edge? What is it like to work there? Paint a picture that draws them in.
- Who they are, as your next great hire. List candidate must-haves – not a laundry list of every conceivable experience or trait, but a thoughtfully-honed short list of the things most critical for success in this position. They should be role-specific and performance-based. Then add a list of candidate nice-to-haves. This two-tiered presentation is less onerous, and it helps candidates assess their own match. It also underscores that your company is flexible.
- Job title. Keep in mind that “director” in a smaller firm may not require as much experience as in a large company, and “senior manager” could be higher-paying than “director,” depending on company type and size. Titles can pigeonhole, whereas something like “dev-ops leader” could open more doors for candidates as well as your company.
- Executive summary that hits the highlights.
People want to feel recruited. Well-crafted job descriptions will do just that, outlining core competencies needed and differentiating your company in terms of how your ideal candidate will benefit.