A job description is a document that describes to a potential candidate the following details about the position:
● Type of work that needs to be performed
● List of everyday activities
● Required skills and qualifications
● Scope of responsibilities
● Essential information about the company
● Salary range
● To whom the position reports
If you fail to formulate your offer clearly enough, candidates might start calling you and sending messages to you to clarify the details. To save yours and theirs time and effort, you should strive to be as articulate as possible.
The quality of a job description is a crucial factor that helps professionals to decide whether they would like to apply for the position or not. It's your chance to produce a favorable impression on the best specialists in the industry. The more skilled and experienced a person is, the better they can assess the level of your professionalism judging by how you write your job descriptions.
Now, let's analyze all the elements of a job description so that you understand how to make the most of them.
When candidates are looking for positions, they filter them by job title. Here are a few tips on how to compile an ideal job title:
● It should be targeted and not generic
● Use key phrases that accurately describe the role
● Avoid internal lingo that might confuse the candidate job seeker
● Stick to an inclusive language
Your job title should look standardized to enable people to find your job offer more easily and open it more eagerly.
The summary should be strong and attention-grabbing. When composing it, you should keep the following recommendations in mind:
● Provide an overview of your company and expectations for the position
● Hook your audience with details about what makes your business unique
● Define the type of employment (such as full time, part time or freelance)
● Include an exact job location to make your offer appear higher in job search results
● Sum up the summary by specifying why a candidate would love to work for you
In the summary, you shouldn't talk too much about your business' mission, culture and benefits it provides to employees. But you should focus on that further in the text. Today, people don't want their jobs to bring them only financial income. They want to work for organizations whose values they share and that enable them to feel fulfilled.
The list of responsibilities should be detailed but concise. It should definitely include two types of duties: the core ones and those that might be unique to your organization. The candidate needs to understand what they will be required to do daily. They should get a notion of the work environment and realize how their position will fit into the organization. Plus, you should tell them how their role impacts your business.
It would be wise to split the required skills into two parts: hard and soft ones. Consider starting with hard ones because they're more difficult to master. If a candidate has limited experience in, let's say, conflict solving, they might complete a course when they will be already working for you. But if you want them to use a specific programming language and they lack this skill, they won't be able to acquire it quickly while working full-time.
Apart from skills, the job description should specify the following characteristics of the candidate:
● Education
● Previous job experience
● Certifications
When formulating the qualifications and skills, you should avoid using the following elements:
● Negative language (such as "can't be lazy")
● Coercive language (such as "must be a perfectionist")
● Superlatives (such as "exceptional coding skills")
First, candidates might struggle to identify whether their skills are "exceptional" or not. Second, they might feel intimidated because you sound too categorical.
Before composing the list of skills, you should consult with your team. Which skills does your collective lack? Whom should you hire to make your team more balanced and versatile?
If you suspect that the list of qualifications has become too long, feel free to split it into two parts: must-haves and nice-to-haves. Such an approach should boost the number of applications you receive because people will feel more confident. Plus, the set of candidates will be more diverse.
Too many job offers lack information about the salary. If you include this data in your job offer, that should help you stand out from the rest. Candidates might hesitate to apply for positions where the salary is not indicated for the following reasons:
● They think that the salary might be lower than the industry average
● They don't want to waste their time and efforts on a company whose offer doesn't seem 100% appealing to them
● They believe the organization might be keeping some other important information secret
It would be reasonable to include a salary range in your job description. It might encourage candidates who don't fully meet your requirements to apply for the position. You may start to pay them a smaller sum and give them time to improve their qualifications. In a few months, you'll increase their salaries and thus strengthen their loyalty to your company.
Apart from the financial remuneration, candidates will be glad to receive some other perks, such as:
● Unlimited PTO
● Flexible hours
● Medical, dental and vision coverage
● Office snacks
● Tuition reimbursement
● Dog-friendly office
Most likely, the candidates will search for people's reviews about your company on the Internet. It would be great if your ex-employees could prove that you indeed offer these perks and they were happy to work for you.
Not all job descriptions feature this element but you might want to include it. It should be enough to say something like "Send us your resume" to create a sense of urgency and convince candidates that you're looking forward to hearing from them. Make sure to include up-to-date contact information so that applicants can reach out to you immediately.
When candidates begin to reach out to you, you can save the information about them in a CRM, just like you do with your clients. Consider using Bitrix24: this software has a CRM with an unlimited number of cells. Plus, it features a built-in contact center that you can use to make audio and video calls as well as send text messages.
Hopefully, you found this article informative and now you have a better understanding of how to write a compelling job description. The text should contain a job title, a job summary, a list of duties and responsibilities, a list of the required skills and qualifications (must-haves plus nice-to-haves), information about salary and benefits and a call to action. Once you've created an attractive job description, you should regularly review and update it.