Hiring officials, what’s with the bare bones job descriptions? The ones that say, “I need a programmer with five years of experience with A, B, and C technologies,” and that’s it. If you want to attract the best candidates, this is not the way to go.
As a potential applicant, what’s in it for me? What’s so great about your company and position? If I’m actively applying for every programmer job opening I can find, sure, I will apply with you. If, however, I am a top performer who is passively considering stronger career opportunities, forget about it. Put yourself in their shoes. If you received a resume and all it said was, “Programmer with five years of experience with A, B, and C technologies” and that’s it, how motivated would you be to give them a call?
Do yourself a favor. Save yourself a lot of time and energy screening the wrong candidates, and write a better job description from the start. How, you ask? Here are some tips:
- What’s in it for me? Why would I want to work for your company? Why would I want this position? Tell me about your company’s culture, size, structure, turnover, and advancement opportunity. Think about the position’s responsibilities and the type of projects I will get to work on. Any upgrades or major improvements that I can add to my resume? Think beyond your list of skill qualifications and address what’s in it for me, the candidate.
- Describe your environment: How many people are on the team? How many end users will I be supporting? Is this an individual contributor role, or will I working with a team of 10 other people? Do I get to wear lots of hats, or will I be focused on a small piece of the puzzle?
- Expand on the qualifications: Don’t just list of a bunch of skills. Tell me more! If you are requiring experience with a certain technology, what will I be doing with it?
- What are your top priorities? Too many job descriptions include a qualifications list of 20+ technologies. Which ones are required, and which ones are preferred? Which are your top priorities – deal-breakers if I don’t have them – and which ones are not important?
These are some of the most common omissions in job descriptions. What else do you think would be helpful to include? If you are guilty of sending out these bare bones job descriptions, why is that? How is that working out for you?
Julie Link, Recruiter
About the Author, Julie Link
As a technical recruiter for the Information Systems team, Julie is responsible for sourcing, qualifying, and matching candidates with contract and fulltime job opportunities in the Kansas City area. She has been with Aureus Group since 2006 after graduating from Creighton University with a BSBA in Human Resources and Spanish. In 2010 Julie received her MBA from Bellevue University. Julie enjoys going on trips, dancing, trying out new restaurants, kayaking, and working on home projects with her husband Jake and taking their dog Jack for walks around the lake. She also sings for weddings and services in her church choir.
Good points. I suppose this stems from the fact that companies are used to having more applicants than positions and the onus being on the applicant to be actively pursuing a job and doing their own research. I would also say that I’ve seen some job descriptions that seemed to do too much selling of the company to prospects and I had to read through several paragraphs before getting to the meat of the position details.