How to Attract Top Talent
If you want to hire great talent you need a great job description to match. Your job description should include essential details such as critical responsibilities, company mission, and any needed skills and qualifications for the role.
The job description will be one of the first impressions candidates have of the company. A sloppy job description can be a turnoff and limit the flow of applications that come in.
To begin writing your job description, you should conduct a job analysis. No matter how many times this role has been hired for, a job analysis can see what responsibilities are essential and what ones aren’t necessary. Especially with the pandemic, many jobs have had to take on more or different responsibilities, which the job listing should reflect.
After a job analysis has been conducted, it’s time to round up some employees. It never hurts to get a helping hand, especially from people who also have the same position or perform similar tasks as the job being hired for. These employees can act as your guide and give you the best inside look at what is important to include in your posting.
What to include in a job description
Appropriate job title
Job seekers will search based on their specializations, so specificity is critical. A job title needs to be specific and accurately reflect the role’s responsibilities before someone can even read the description. Along with specificity, the job title should be familiar and well known. Regardless if it fully matches the internal job title, pick something short and recognizable.
Summary
Your summary will be one of the first things the searcher reads, so be unique and hook them in. This section should introduce your company and its mission. Why is your company unique, and why should people want to work there. The summary should also include a precise job location. A location can get your posting higher in the results and get you more clicks. Lastly, include work hours and what kind of work environment they should expect. If the position is remote, that should also be indicated here.
Responsibilities and Duties
Outline the role’s key responsibilities. Be detailed but make it concise. A bullet point list is a great way to organize this information and make it easy on the eyes. Emphasize day-to-day duties. This is where conducting a job analysis will come in handy. A bonus detail is highlighting how the job fits within the company. This should indicate who the employee reports to and any other departments they will be working closely with.
Required skills and qualifications
Keep this section concise by creating a bullet list of what requirements a suitable candidate should have. This should include education or certifications that are required and any hard and soft skills that are needed. This section can also include how many years of experience are necessary and should appropriately correlate to the job level.
Benefits
Although you are interviewing candidates, they are also analyzing companies based on their descriptions. While they want to know how they can help a company, candidates also want to know what they can receive in return. Here you can include the salary range as well as additional perks and benefits.
Additional tips
Don’t use buzzwords
Creative-sounding terms like guru and ninja don’t get clicks. While these words appear to stand out from other positions, they are typically ignored. Qualified job seekers might not resonate with these terms and will end up passing on what could be a fantastic opportunity.
Bias language
Avoid using biased language such as gendered language. This type of language can cut off a good chunk of job seekers from applying to the position. Using gender-neutral terms can feel more welcoming and is inclusive to all. We all have implicit bias. Take some time to self-reflect on how your bias might be excluding qualified candidates.
Focus on the future
Your description should be optimistic and highlight room for growth. Everyone wants to branch out in their career, and a simple list of daily tasks can be boring and discouraging. Instead, list how these daily tasks contribute to the objective of the company. This will get candidates excited, knowing exactly how their role can help achieve a company’s goals.
Edit, edit, edit
Once you are satisfied with your description, edit the heck out of it! This seems like an obvious tip, but it can be easy to miss silly mistakes. Getting an extra set of eyes, whether a colleague or an editing program, can help polish your job posting.
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