Why are job descriptions important? They are usually the first point of contact for your potential candidate. Get it wrong and you might not only deter your ideal hire but also attract hundreds of the wrong applicants.
It takes four weeks on average to hire a new person. Almost five days of that are spent screening CVs. If you get the wrong type of candidates applying, you might have written an incorrect, unhelpful or misleading job description.
Read on as we discuss tips on how to write the perfect job description for a rapidly changing job market!
Make sure candidates understand your company
The best candidates know the market well and they have their eye on change in your industry. Why? Because they are looking to work for a company that can stay ahead of — and influence — developments to achieve growth.
This is particularly the case for startups: a good job posting does not sell your business — but your vision, work culture and career and personal development opportunities.
As Justin Cerilli, managing director of financial services and technology at Russell Reynolds & Associates, says: “You want candidates to be excited about your company and the transformation happening in the industry”.
To do this, connect the description of your company with plans for the next six to 12 months, how the role will support growth as well as being informative about the business function.
If the description excites candidates, you know they will be heavily invested in the role and company.
Use the right language for your ideal candidate
It’s tempting to employ words that make your job title sound exciting. Perhaps it will attract dynamic applicants!
However, there are a couple of risks to be aware of. Firstly, think about what people are searching for. You will be better off titling a job “UX Designer” than “Superstar Designer” even though the second one might sound more fun.
Linked is the danger that people might not understand exactly what the job is if you are “clever-clever” with skills and responsibilities. Or that they might not connect with phrases or descriptions, feel the role isn’t for them, or assume they are underqualified.
An ideal job description should simply: “tell employees exactly what tasks you expect them to perform and…may address quality or quantity of performance standards or even work rules that apply to a particular job. Without such clear communications, employees may not perform to your expectations.”
Focus on the soft skills of a candidate
The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs report predicts 40% of current workers’ core skills will change over the next five years. Eight of these 10 most desirable skills in 2025 will be the so-called “soft skills.”
These include communication, productivity, teamwork, and adaptability and can’t be taught (not in a short space of time, anyway). Soft skills are far more transferable and more useful plugging up the emerging skills gap.
Employers are already wise to this: 97% surveyed said that soft skills were either as important or more important than hard skills. This is partially because more people are currently working from home: over half now doing so and soft skills are more valuable in this area.
But even as things return to normal over the next year to 18 months, jobs are continuously evolving as the digital transformation of businesses accelerates.
In short, the focus needs to be on how you work, not so much what work you do.
Write a perfect job description in 5 minutes
The average time it takes to plan and write a job description is about half a day. What if you could do it in five minutes?
PitchMe’s new job description generator (below) can.
Just input the job title and the generator will suggest skills suitable for the role from which you can select.
The software will combine these skills and other work details such as salary, location and environment and automatically generate a description of the position and responsibilities.
How does it work? The generator uses information from over 200 templates and 4,500 skills to produce the job description. Use it on our platform or take it elsewhere!
So, why are job descriptions important?
If your candidate understands — and is excited about — your company’s vision from the job description, you’re highly likely to attract the right talent.
With soft skills often being more important than hard skills, you can find the right person for transitioning into a more distributed workforce, while future-proofing your people.
To write the perfect job description every time, use our jobs description generator by signing up and creating an account for free.
We hope you have enjoyed reading about why job descriptions are so important in finding the right candidates.