Obviously effective recruitment and talent attraction has to start way before the interview stage. You can’t really evaluate a candidate’s suitability and capabilities if you have not thought through and clearly identified the objectives of the role.
Job specs are almost always based on duties, responsibilities and experience requirements but they they can be much more effective selling tools when they also define expected performance and set objectives – this gives a perception of challenge and tells the candidate what is expected of them in order for them to be successful in the role. Here are our top tips of what should be included:
• Major objectives
• Changes and improvements needed
• Problems to solve
• Technical challenges
• Management and recruitment of staff
Include extra information such as:
• Short and long term career opportunities
• Full company information
• A team description
We’d be interested in your feedback – what else do you include in your job specs?
Tags: candidates, job specification, Recruitment
As a copywriter who specialises in recruitment I always tell people that a job description should not be viewed as a sales tool. Indeed i wrote about it here…. http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/a-job-description-isnt-a-sales
To me, a JD should be viewed as a checklist of duties and responsibilities and a wish list of skills and experience. The opportunity to sell the role comes through advertising it or selling it to a candidate either face to face or over the phone.
The web has become cluttered with cut and pasted job descriptions posing as job ads. They do nothing to bring the role alive and have no allure whatsoever. The JD, in my opinion, should be a secondary document once a positive picture has been pained about the role, NOT the vehicle for trying to sell someone into it.