4 ingredients of world-class job descriptions
Today’s guest post is by Ethan L. Chazin, an executive recruiter and employment professional with nearly 20 years of experience in a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, financial services and publishing.
When hiring managers and business owners are faced with a tremendous glut in available talent, you would think that finding the right candidate would be a breeze — and you’d be wrong.
When there is a tremendous wealth of highly talented candidates to choose from, writing job descriptions to find the right person (or people) to fill your company’s vacancies becomes all the more critical.
The best job descriptions are much more than a compilation of that job’s roles and responsibilities. Here’s what they should also include:
- A quick summary of a company’s origin. This is critical for companies in business for less than five years.
- A plain-English pitch for the company’s “unique selling proposition.” A USP is what makes your company a unique place to work. Use descriptive prose to set the candidate’s level of understanding. Can they accurately picture what it would be like to work for you? You should also provide information about salary ranges and benefits.
- The company’s key historical landmarks and partnerships. Possibilities include the number of clients and any special contracts and partnerships.
- The core competencies that you are seeking in the ideal candidate. Be very explicit about the experience you want. Are there any special academic requirements required for success in this role?
What are some of your tips for writing great job descriptions?
Image credit, caracterdesign, via iStock
Posted by jeff on September 23rd, 2009 at 3:33 am
I think job descriptions should be written in the marketing dept. So often i read them and they sound like they were written by someone who hates their own job. Bottom line is they don't sell potential emloyees on benefits (not insurance etc) they simply go through the tasks, responsibilities and requirements.
Posted by Leanne Hoagland-Smit on September 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 am
To demonstrate the competencies, behaviors need to be clearly articulated along with a shared glossary of terms so that everyone knows what On-time means, high work ethic, skill, etc.
Posted by Trevor on September 23rd, 2009 at 9:29 am
This is mostly wrong. Wrong, wrong, F***ing wrong. You're (still) making the classic mistake of writing a job description that's about the company and not about the candidate.
Point 1) Don't worry so much about the history of the company until later. The candidate doesn't care about the company's origin — not until they are interested in the role, at least. The first order of business is to intrigue them. A company summary is still somewhat important, but put it last.
Point 2) Most companies are NOT 'unique places to work'. Most don't have bean bag chairs and nap rooms and Friday happy hour. They have cubicles and meetings and IT guys. You're wasting your time here and will just end up sounding like every other tired & cliched ad. Don't drink your own Kool Aid.
What COULD BE unique is what the candidate will have responsibility for, or what stage the project they are joining is at, or how big their team is, and how experienced, or what they might build, or flexible work hours, and so on. In short, what's in it for THEM. It's a job "AD", right? Pay attention to how TV ads position a product — by speaking to the motivators of an audience.
C) Get input from the hiring manager(s). Repeat what they say about the position. Speak plainly, include direct quotes, give the job a human face, not 'item #db104298' in your HR database.
D) Include the requirements of the job, yes, but give it some meat. You need C++ skills, or Photoshop, or Engineering understanding, fine….so how will this be applied?
E) Imagine the candidate will sitting right in front of you. Would you read the responsibilities to them line by line? Nope, you'd talk to them and answer questions. Well take the questions you think they'd ask and pre-answer them on the posting.
Why go to all this trouble? Because the best, most talented people, want to be passionate about what they do. They want to be motivated and excited about an opportunity, they want to visualize themselves in the role. The four points above are just going to draw resumes from people looking for a job.
Delivering tepid, company-centric job ads full of company blather and neatly articulated bullet points is not the answer.
Oh and don't make it ugly. Add logos and tables and graphics if you can. Style matters. If your company cares about talent, show it.
Here's an example of what I mean: http://www.redcanary.ca/view/v-p-consumer
@copywryter
Posted by Mark Birch on September 23rd, 2009 at 11:25 am
Problem with job descriptions is that they have no correlation to what an organization needs to achieve. They absolutely do not reflect reality.
The second problem is that it becomes a very difficult to map a job description to resumes, interview notes, and other elements of the talent acquisition process. Therefore a hiring manager does not have a clear view of who are the best candidates for a position, leading to using intuition as the core driver for making talent decisions.
What can bring some sense to this mess? To relate jobs to organizational goals through skills which precisely describes what is required to be successful in the position. Skills are elemental and precise enough to give the details needs to differentiate candidates, and gives candidates a clear sense of what the role requires.
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Posted by Ethan Chazin on September 24th, 2009 at 7:28 am
There are a lot of really good points raised from eveyone's posts. A few thoughts with respect to consolidating my replies:
1) there are two cultures in ANY organization; formal and informal. The FORMAL is aspirational…it's what the organization thinks about itself and/or WANTS people to think about it. A less flattering term is "spin." It's what the organiztion paya their pr firm or marketing folks to create. It's often artificial and not realistic. Then there is the INFORMAL. It's what the company is really like to work for.
So, when I say USP – it's not the features of the environment – cubicles, furniture, water cool, kitchen/cafeteria…it's the background, beliefs and values of the President/GM if its a small company, or the management team of a mid-to -large sized organization and that includes the firm's benefits, workplace feautres, programs, training, flexible work schedules, family. These are the things you WANT to convey if you are tasked with writing a job description.
I philosophically disagree STRONGLY with anyone that claims the culture/USP, workplace CULTURE doesn't matter. Matching a job seeker's personal core values and beliefs with the informal culture of the organization is critical for recruiting success, and writing a job description that provides that information is one step in helping that matching process.
It's not a bad idea to have marketing help write the job descriptions, but the person managing the group that the job vacancy exists in still must have ownership. Marketing can create a serviceable template that describes the culture, co. mission, USP, etc. then work with the hiring manager & job vacancy manager t ofill in the job and dept. specific details.
Thoughts?
Comment provided by Ethan (the guest blogger)
Posted by Job Descriptions on October 15th, 2009 at 12:41 am
The ingredients are very helpful, Thanks.