How to create better job descriptions: a guide for marketers

The content of this briefing is taken from Econsultancy’s Modern Marketing Job Descriptions Best Practice Guide, written by Rose Keen. The report offers hiring managers and recruitment teams the tools to write better job descriptions for in-demand roles.

From building in inclusivity from the beginning to ensuring discoverability, this guide offers a framework to help organisations attract and retain skilled marketing talent in a competitive hiring landscape.

This briefing covers:

• What are job descriptions?
• Essential information to include
  • Passing the ‘scan test’
• Compelling clarity
  • Job descriptions as a marketing challenge
• Job descriptions and discoverability
• The business case for better job descriptions
  • The costs of poor job descriptions
• Who should own job descriptions?

Explore the wider report for advice on storytelling in job descriptions, a close-up look at the anatomy of a job description, how to write an inclusive job description, and more.

What are job descriptions?

Job descriptions are an essential part of the hiring process. They perform two major functions for a company: framing the business needs and helping attract candidates based on skills and profile matching. Without a clearly defined job description, it would be very difficult to:

• Attract appropriate candidates, particularly for in-demand roles
• Effectively evaluate a person’s fit for the role.

Although individual elements and layouts may vary between organisations and platforms, the majority of job descriptions follow the same broad structure, including: job title, role description, skills and experience requirements and salary and benefits information. This structure and the best practice around each individual element are explored in more detail in our Modern Marketing Job Descriptions Best Practice Guide.

Essential information

To provide clarity in terms of business need and candidate match, job descriptions must communicate specifics on the role to be filled. This should include:

1. The nature of the work i.e. responsibilities, location

2. What success would look like i.e. how the role contributes to the organisation’s aims, any targets

3. What the candidates can expect from the organisation i.e. reward, culture and advancement.

Analysis of posted job descriptions found that only 3% of organisations included all the basic information in their job descriptions. Just ensuring the basics are covered is the simplest way to have a significant impact on candidate response.

Passing the ‘scan test’

The idea of shortened attention spans and digital noise will be familiar to anyone who works in the digital sphere. When a LinkedIn search for ‘product manager’ in London returns 6,740 results, it is unlikely that any job description for even active job seekers will garner more than a few seconds’ attention on first review.

Therefore it is important to ensure the most pertinent information, such as location, job title and salary range is clear and immediately easy to spot.

The importance of these details was backed up by LinkedIn’s 2018 hot mapping study, which found that respondents were most likely to scan the job title, location of the role, salary and benefits and specific responsibilities, i.e. number of direct reports.

LinkedIn’s ‘helpful heatmap’ shows which parts of a job description candidates find most helpful (Source: LinkedIn)

From the candidate’s perspective, it is not that a company mission or culture are unimportant, but they want to ensure the role is a good fit for what they are looking for before investing the time and brain space to considering if the company is also a good match to their values or career ambitions.

Compelling clarity

While clarity is king, when it comes to defining job descriptions, with competition, mass audience job boards (e.g. LinkedIn) and the rise of the empowered employee, the communication requirements for job descriptions have increased, particularly for in-demand job roles.

The best job descriptions should now both clearly communicate what a company is looking for in a candidate as well as take into account the audience for the description. This will ensure the job description is seen by the candidate, stands out against the competition and, once it has captured the candidate’s attention, also makes the case for why they should want to come work for the organisation.

As a result, an effective job description should:

1. Be discoverable: Job descriptions should take into account how the target audience for the role will be reached. This should encompass search, what platforms will be used and the language of the job description itself.

2. Be clear: An effective job description should clearly define the type of work, its seniority, benefits and what the experience of the job will be like in a way that quickly allows potential candidates to understand their fit for the role.

3. Be appealing: The job description should make the case for why taking this role would be a good move for potential candidates. It should describe the benefits, the culture, progression path and purpose of the role.

4. Stand out: Organisations are all different, and job descriptions should communicate those differences in a way that allows a potential candidate to understand if they are a good match beyond skillset and salary expectations.

5. Be inclusive: Job descriptions that do not take inclusivity into account will cost an organisation both in terms of the business benefits of a diverse workforce but also access to a wider pool of talent.

Although the above is not new thinking in terms of effective hiring, particularly among recruitment experts, the recognition and widespread adoption of these considerations has increased, with many of the interviewees for this report agreeing that the above is vital for hiring for in-demand roles.

A simple goal

“A third of your job description should be the employer brand and the vision for the company. But the other two-thirds need to explain to the job seeker what a day in their life might look like. When they are done reading this content, they should be able to answer the question ‘If I change this big part of my life, will my life be better?’ Most job postings fall very short of that simple goal.”

Katrina Kibben, CEO, Three Ears Media

Job descriptions as a marketing challenge

From considering what channel will be most effective for reaching a target audience to writing compelling calls to action, the creation of an effective job description can be treated as a marketing challenge. Where those skills are not present within the recruiting team, several interviewees suggested reaching out to either the internal marketing team for advice or seeking out external expertise.

This increased need for marketing abilities in order to effectively attract relevant, in-demand talent is driving changes in the skills makeup of recruitment teams. Many larger companies are looking to beef up their recruitment team’s skills by adding specialists in talent analytics, recruitment marketing and recruitment tech.

Just as data skills have become essential for marketing professionals, so has it become increasingly important for recruiters, with the number of recruitment professionals listing data analysis as one of their skills on their LinkedIn profile growing by 111% since 2015.

Marketing to candidates

“To build a pool of talent, you need to be giving people valuable content in exchange for their email address, and keeping in touch with them. You need to be building a database in the same way that you would in traditional marketing. The best thing people can do is to get some help from their marketing teams.”

Ashleigh Ferris, Account Director, Talent Nexus

“What kind of copy do you think will reflect the sort of person you wanted to apply for this job? But also what media, what tools, what platforms and LinkedIn groups are they using? Where are the people who are looking for jobs? Are there other ways that we could potentially reach out to interesting people?”

Christie H Kristensen, CMO, Spiir & Nordic API Gateway

Job descriptions and discoverability

A brilliant job description still needs the correct audience to be effective. To ensure a job description is seen by the right people, there are two questions to consider:

• Would an active job seeker be able to find it?
• What channels are the target audience looking at?

Search

With mass job boards such as LinkedIn and Monster.co.uk often a part of the job hunt, it is essential a job description appears under the relevant search term. These results are driven primarily by the job title.

As research shows, the majority of job seekers use Google as a part of the job hunt, so it is also valuable to consider the broader SEO of a job description and the origination’s hiring site. Several interviewees recommended running job titles through Google Trends to compare search volumes.

Search volumes for different SEO job titles, compared side-by-side. (Source: Google Trends. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google LLC, used with permission)

For more information about optimising copy for search, see Econsultancy’s Search Engine Optimisation Best Practice Guide.

Other channels

A key approach in improving discoverability is doing research. LinkedIn, professional bodies and meetups are all useful resources in helping to understand and target segments of the market and position job descriptions effectively.

Christie H Kristensen, CMO at Spiir & Nordic API Gateway, recommends being inventive when trying to recruit for the most in-demand job roles: “Don’t narrow yourself when it comes to the areas to find talent. Think about what platforms they are on, which LinkedIn groups they are using.”

Using channels outside of the traditional mass job boards to reach a target pool of candidates can increase the visibility of the job role. Appearing in a different context can help an employer stand out against the competition by demonstrating a deeper understanding of the relevant group’s interests.

However, just as with any advert, context is important. Be aware of how this platform, group or channel is used by the target audience and if a job advert would be appropriate here.

The business case for better job descriptions

The case for investing the time and energy into producing better job descriptions is simple. The quality of the job description will have a direct impact on the ease and speed of the hiring process, associated hiring costs and ultimately the quality of the hire.

An ill thought out job description will impede the process of hiring for the relevant skills or expertise within the organisation. This may have a broader impact on the performance of the business as projects are delayed or productivity suffers.

An effective job description should not only serve to attract desirable candidates but also to help filter out those who would not be a good fit before they enter into the hiring process. Though some proportion of unsuitable job seekers may still apply, it is important to arm potentially suitable candidates with the information to understand if this is the right role for them.

This could be through showcasing a culture that would appeal to some personality types but not others, or ensuring candidates are aware of any factors that may cause them to drop out of a process later, such as a travel requirement or the absence of flexible working opportunities.

Allowing people to make an informed choice about opting out at this early point will reduce the number of irrelevant CVs or unsuccessful candidates. It will also protect against any potential brand damage that may come from candidates frustrated at having invested the time in applying or interviewing for a job that is ultimately unsuitable.

The costs of poor job descriptions

• Attracting the wrong people: a poorly written, ill-considered advert will not attract the right people. This means wasted time sifting through CVs.
• Brand damage: this is a brand exercise as well as a job advert. The candidate’s experience will have an impact on their perception of the brand.
• Compromising interviews: incorrect or misleading job information will result in people attending interviews with the wrong understanding about the role. Keep it accurate to save everyone’s time.
• Increased churn: job descriptions have an impact beyond the hire. Allowing candidates to make an informed choice as to their fit with a role and organisation from the outset will help prevent churn further down the line.

Invest the time

“Job postings [descriptions] have both an initial effect and a ripple effect. Initially, you won’t get the right applicants and the hiring manager won’t like you. Then say you do hire someone, it’s probably not going to be the right fit. So now you’ve lost someone and you start all over again. Just because you didn’t invest that one hour a few weeks ago.”

Katrina Kibben, CEO, Three Ears Media

“Job descriptions are like anything else; for something of good quality it will take effort. Just like if you gave a designer 30 seconds to draw something, they would do a poor job. If you gave the same task a day, you’d get something beautiful and interesting.”

Christie H Kristensen, CMO, Spiir & Nordic API Gateway

Who should own job descriptions?

Who should own job descriptions is a hotly contested issue. The experts interviewed for this report mentioned a mixture of successful models for responsibility, dependent on resource availability and the rate of hire. Broadly, these could be characterised into two approaches:

• Large number of similar roles: For growth at pace, the model of an empowered, specialist recruitment team using templated descriptions can help build full teams quickly.
• Individual or niche roles: Hiring a small number or specialist roles generally requires a greater involvement from the hiring manager, who is better equipped to understand the specific skillset required.

What the majority of interviewees agreed on was the importance of defining the role requirements, both in terms of technical requirements and soft skills. This would normally be shaped by the hiring manager or the individual closest to the strategic aims and needs of the team.

HR has a key role to play in the shaping and the communication of the employer brand. HR can best support the effectiveness of a digital job description by sharing knowledge of discoverability and platforms.

HR teams within companies with a need for digital talent would benefit from building their knowledge of the functions they are hiring for and how that contributes to the success of the organisation. This, in combination with the skills briefing by the hiring manager, will allow the HR team to help hiring managers manage the recruitment process in a consistent and effective manner.

Learn more

Explore the full Modern Marketing Job Descriptions report

The post How to create better job descriptions: a guide for marketers appeared first on Econsultancy.

from Econsultancy https://ift.tt/2VRKpHw
via Ebusiness