If you’re in the business of hiring, you need to know how to write a winning job description. The purpose of a job description is to highlight the unique skills and qualifications of the person you’re hiring. However, describing someone’s skills and qualifications in detail can be quite challenging. That’s why most employers don’t do it well; they just list a handful of duties and leave it at that.
You have to write more than just the job description to ensure you hit on all the key points. You need to also write the narrative of the person’s work experience, including examples of their previous work. This is known as the “elevator pitch” in business literature. It’s your chance to stand out among the other applicants and make your recruiter’s job easier. You need to write the narrative as if you’re speaking directly to the candidate, which implies they’re a potential employee you’re interested in.
Here’s where things get tricky. Most job descriptions are written by employers who are biased towards finding the most suitable candidate. That means there’s a chance they might not paint an accurate picture of the employee’s skills and abilities. What’s more, they might leave out certain details that would be useful in evaluating their performance. For example, you could say they have extensive experience in a certain field, but neglect to mention they’re usually quite busy and rarely have time to spend on patients as claimed. You need to ask yourself whether or not you’re hiding something by leaving out these crucial details. Could you potentially ruin the employee’s chances of landing this exciting new position?
You might wonder how much you should actually spent on writing the job description. After all, it’s just a mundane document that doesn’t necessarily need to be fancy. You don’t necessarily need to write a bestselling novel to write a winning job description, but you should at least know the basics. What’s more, you need to make sure each word you use is charged with meaning and carries with it a specific connotation. Here are some essentials you need to include in your job description:
Who You’re Hiring
You must include the name of the candidate you’re seeking. This is very important because the person reading the description will need to know who they’re hiring to ensure there are no errors in understanding. For instance, if you’re seeking a nursing position and you don’t mention they need to be a nurse, the reader won’t know this and might think you’re hiring someone with medical training. If you’re seeking an accountant position and you don’t mention they need to have a college degree, the applicant might assume they don’t need any experience either. You definitely don’t want to ruin your chances of hiring the best candidate by leaving out vital information that they might find useful in pursuing the job. You don’t need to write their life story; just include enough information for the reader to understand who you’re hiring. The candidate’s name is Mandatory and it should be easy for the reader to find. If you use a keyword or key phrase to indicate the name, the search engine will return the results immediately.
Job Title & Responsibilities
The job title is quite self-explanatory. The responsibilities should be a concise and accurate overview of the job description. Make sure you mention the skills and qualifications required to perform the job. You should also include any special training or certification the employee might need to be able to hit the ground running. For example, if the job requires specific legal training, you could mention it.
Duties
A job description should include a list of the essential responsibilities of the position. There are two different ways you can go about creating this list. You can either include everything in bullet points or you can use a table to layout the responsibilities. The choice is up to you. The former is quite easy to manage in Microsoft Word and the latter requires a bit more work. If you decide to use the bullet points method, make sure you consult with the HR department or someone with experience in creating job descriptions to ensure you don’t leave out any vital information.
Another important thing to include in your job description is a summary of the services the employee will provide. For example, if you’re seeking a sales position and you want to highlight the role’s importance in generating revenue, you could write something like this: “The main services the salesperson will provide are: generating sales leads, converting these leads into business, and following up with clients to ensure they remain happy with our services.”
How to Contact
One of the most important things you need to include in your job description is how to contact the employee. This is quite sensitive information and you need to be careful not to leave out any crucial details. You should include the email address and telephone number of the person you’re seeking to contact. If possible, you should also include a formatted address – that is, one that can be easily input into a street address lookup system.
Location
If you’re seeking an office-based position, you need to include the location of your company. If you’re seeking a field position, you need to include the location of where you’ll be working. You should also include the physical address of the location, including the nearest cross street.
Salary
The last but not least is the salary. Ideally, you want to avoid writing about the salary until the very end. Your goal is to make sure you write the winning narrative, not the salary. However, since you can never know how much a candidate will ultimately accept, you need to include this information at the end. You need to write something like this: “The salary for this position is $150,000 per year.”
Including these essentials will make your job description stand out among the rest.