Benefits from Writing a Good Job Description
1. It is the foundation for the job hiring.
2. It can help you justify the position and what you want to accomplish by hiring this person.
3. It can define what you want in a new hire.
4. It is your best recruiting tool.
5. It can attract the best candidates, if it is well written and looks interesting.
6. It can act as a filtering device to help you stay focused on what it will take for the new hire to be successful in this position.
7. It will help you develop more focused interview questions to screen out the “real”answers.
8. It can improve communications once the new hire begins the job.
9. It will make performance issues easier to discuss, because you will have benchmarks to guide you and the
new hire.
10. It will help you find the right fit with a new hire who will be satisfied with the job and stay longer-improving your retention rate.
"The job description can be used as a tool to try to avoid miscommunication and breakdowns in understanding what one person wants and needs. Mainly what needs to be clear is what you want from the employee and how the employee understands what is important to you."
In writing the job description, you have to Ask yourself fisrt:
“What would be my ideal situation to be solved by finding the right person?”
Begin to think of this description as your wish list.
Let’s start with some basic questions to ask yourself:
“Why is it necessary to fill this position—at this time?”
“Could the responsibilities of this job be assigned to another employee?”
“What do I hope to accomplish by hiring a new person?”
This line of thinking and these questions should be your first step to be sure that you can justify the hiring of this person.Once you have justified the need for the hire, you can progress to the next step: to determine the experiences, qualifications, and skills that are necessary for a person to succeed in this position.
When all candidates appear equal in terms of experience and knowledge, it is sometimes the added value that will be the tiebreaker and determine the best candidate for the job.
Added value are skills or abilities that are above and beyond what is essential or even nonessential for the job.They are skills, traits, and experiences that would be a plus in this position.
Here are some examples of added-value statements on a job description:- Excellent English language skills required—both written and spoken. Any knowledge of other Asian languages will be a big plus.- Financial services industry experiences a plus.- Call center experience preferred.- Proficient in Microsoft Office and Internet technologies.- Passion for assisting disadvantaged persons would be a great asset.- Second language skills and international business experience are desired.
The next set of questions to ask yourself is about the value of importance:
“When weighing the value of what is important to the success of the business, what extra services could I offer if the person I hired had more than the required skills?”
“What could this person bring in addition to the basic requirements that would add value to the position?”
“How can these skills or abilities add value to the business or give additional service to our customers?”
“What new service could be added as a result of hiring a person with extra skills?”
Writing Job Description for recent graduates & Mid career candidates:
Examples
- Able to use rigorous logic and methods to solve problems with effective solutions.
- Experience and success speaking in public, in front of customers, analysts, and company executives.
- Effective team management experience/skills in a matrix and geographically dispersed international organization in a rapidly changing environment.
- Ability to manage inventory plans from investment through allocation execution, including ongoing assessments and updates, for multiple departments.
- Ability to think objectively and interpret meaningful themes from quantitative and qualitative data (Analytic Skills).
- Perform price negotiations, prepare the contractual documents, and close the sale with clients.
- Passion for assisting a disadvantaged population.
- Available to travel and work in excess of standard hours when necessary.
- High degree of self-motivation and the ability to work independently.
- Ability to work under pressure in a demanding environment.
Writing a job description for managers and executives will require more details about the responsibilities of the job and the impact the decisions make on the bigger picture:
The achievements, or the lack of achievement, of an executive may play a significant role on the success or failure of a department or a company:
- Manage multimillion-dollar glazing projects for Florida Glass.Manage all project managers as well as oversee all of production.
- Work with the Analytics and Product Marketing teams to define the right target segments based on the capacity and performance of the Telesales group.
- Communicate with regional staff about comparative shopping analyses, fast and slow selling classifications and styles, planning and adjusting stock levels, and customer requests.
- As a member of the Technology Outside Sales team, the regional sales manager for the Northeastern region executes the company sales strategy throughout an identified geographical region.
- Works with minimal supervision and is responsible to make an established range of decisions, escalating to
manager when necessary and updates manager on a regular basis.
Examples
- Leads the development and elevation of direct leaders and staff through proactive coaching, mentoring,
professional development, and feedback.
- Oversees operations, facility, grant-funded programs, grant reporting, and staff of 17.
- Manages inventory plans from investment through allocation execution, including ongoing assessments and
updates, for multiple departments.
- Recruits and supervises interns and volunteers to conduct surveys and interview patients.
- Trains and motivates the sales team and promotes team culture and values.
- Analyzes and prepares forecasts to project long-term and immediate workforce demands.
- Directs and manages a team of bank tellers; training and scheduling work schedules.
- Creates and implements effective in-house procedures.
- Conducts audits of financial dealings within the corporation.
- Manages confidential correspondence, scheduling, and meetings for key executive.
- Plans and directs all office management for the CEO as well as other key executives.
- Handles a wide variety of writing tasks, from routine to creative features.
- Plays key role in all phases of planning, preparation, and execution of Achievement Awards.
- Solidifies and strengthens relations with the public through positive initiatives.
- Verifies compliance to release specifications on all products prior to shipment.
Another example:
Marketing Manager
Market managers are responsible for the gross profit in assigned markets, and will own inventory, cost, pricing, and merchandising decisions for that market.
Responsibilities
1. Develops and maintains supplier relationships at the property and chain level through daily contact.
Skills Required: Communication Skills-Interpersonal Sensitivity-Create Motivating Environment
2. Analyzes contracts and executes pricing.
Skills Required: Business Savvy, Analytical Skills,Decision-Making, Strategic, Big Picture Perspective, Negotiation
3. Implements extranet rate and inventory revisions, ensures suppliers understand extranet, and increases supplier usage of extranet.
Skills Required: Flexibility, Customer Focus, Motivate, Accountable
4. Conducts weekly competitive analysis for key markets, reports findings, and makes adjustments.
Skills Required: Analytical Thinking, Big Picture Thinking,Development Orientation, Adaptable
5. Monitors, evaluates, and reports on individual accounts and markets progress toward achieving weekly, monthly, annual targets.
Skills Required: Ability to Hold People Accountable, Analytical,Decision Maker, Goal-Oriented
6. Understand key market hard/soft periods, know destinations and trends, create and maintain event calendars for key market locations, and plan courses of action required to meet supply, demand, and necessary sales.
Skills Required: Business Savvy,Visionary,Trend Knowledge, Organized, Planner, Implement Action
7. Execute annual contract negotiations.
Skills Required: Leadership, Strategic, Communication, Deal Maker, Closer,Negotiation Skills
Top Ten Mistakes When Writing Job Descriptions
1. Adding fluff and padding to the job description. No fluff allowed! Keep it simple and straightforward.
2. Writing uninspiring job descriptions (boring) No one will read beyond the first sentence.
3. Not being specific with details (this is no place for vague or misleading language).
4. Being overzealous in what the position can accomplish (this is “wishful thinking” but not realistic).
5. Not reviewing what has been done in the past (interviewing someone who is leaving the position).
6. Not thinking about what you want in the new candidate (before the search process begins).
7. Not targeting the job to the right job seeker; failure to entice or excite the right candidate.
8. Writing “tasks-only” job descriptions.Devoting more than 75 % of the job description to this one area is too much.
9. Losing sight of the fact that this is a “recruiting tool” (make it look like an interesting opportunity).
10. Using a cut and paste job description from another company as your job description for your company culture.
