Writing a Good Job Description

Writing a Good Job Description
By Frank Mulligan, Talent Software

An eternal complaint that I have heard over the years in China is that Job Descriptions are not.

Descriptive, that is.

Most consist of a list of conflicting characteristics and are put together to fit a template that was created many years before by someone who has since left. As a whole they often describe a candidate who is closer to a saint than a person.

The key issue with writing job advertising is that if it is badly written it will get fewer good responses. If it is well written it will get more and better responses. Thatís all. No magic bullet. Just a solid improvement in statistics.

At the absolute best you will get rid of all the people who have no chance of being hired and effectively have a slate of people to pick and choose from. This is a dream but if you were to write great job advertisements every time, sooner or later the dream would come true. Even in China where candidates are this rare species like the extinct Dodo.

(I should point out at this point that I am not a copy writer but I know a good JD when I see it)

What We Know

Itís not rocket science but candidates are likely to skip over your job advertisement if it is merely a list of ímust havesí. What good people seem to want is something that paints a picture of what they would be expected to do in the job, and what that would do for their career. Anything less they think is for the mediocrities.

The lists in a JD often contain things that conflict. So if you expect someone to be a self-starter and a team player you are really stretching things. You should also not be looking for someone with íexcellent sales skillsí and ístrong attention to detailí.

My personal favourite is the Performance Profile that details what the person would be expected to achieve in the first year on the job. This always seems to blend in well with the interviewing process and it catches outstanding issues early. Lou Adler is the man if you want to know more about Performance Profiles.

The key issue for me, as someone working in a candidateís market, is whether the benefits of the role have been communicated to the candidate. If the benefits are not clear you should go back to the start and begin again. Once the benefits are clear the decision is effectively made.

The weakness I often see is Recruiters trying to stretch the position to make it fit the candidates aspirations, and then blaming the candidate when this does not work. You wouldnít buy a used-car from someone who does this.

Why do we expect qualified, experienced professionals to fall for it?

Comments to: frank.mulligan@recruit-china.com