Trusted Advisor Recruiter: Don’t Write Your Job Postings Alone

It's great we are talking about creating postings that go far beyond the typical job description. I'm sure you can do that without talking to your hiring manager, but getting them involved pays off in multiple ways.

Below are some questions that will pull out some good information from your hiring managers they might not share otherwise.

It’s especially important to ask your hiring manager these questions to:

a) Get this info in the hiring manager’s words because those are the words that will resonate with your candidates, and

b) Hear how your hiring manager is “selling” the opportunity.

What makes this a great career opportunity?
What is happening in the company overall, this portion of the company, etc., that would be important and exciting for the candidate to know?
What does the near term future look like? What new things are you planning?
What are you excited about in your business?
How would you (the hiring manager) describe the culture today? What is it like to work in this group? What is it like to work for you (the hiring manager)?

After you’ve written the new exciting job posting, be sure to show it to the hiring manager.

This makes sure it’s accurate. More importantly, it gets them involved and will help them see why the original job description was woefully inadequate.

And it is a wonderful visual demonstration of the expertise you bring to the process.

Let me know how it goes.

Comment by David Parkhouse on August 17, 2012 at 12:21pm: Katherine,

Great article! Very informative, especially for us newbies. :)

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. :)

Comment by katherine moody on August 17, 2012 at 12:30pm: Thank you, David. You're very welcome. I have more "thoughts" I'll be sharing.

A newbie: how fun! You're going to love it. Remember this piece of advice is free so...

The most important relationship you can foster is the one with your hiring managers.

Comment by Jay Lowry on August 23, 2012 at 1:45pm: A very good article Katherine.

I would like to get a Job Description with some fluff in it. All of the ones I get seem to be bare ones responsibilites and requirements documents, with no sizzile. Some one needs to teach writing skills to HR managers. I guarentee if they were selling those jobs on Madison Avenue they would have no takers.

Oh well.

Comment by katherine moody on August 23, 2012 at 4:00pm: Thank you, Jay. A recruiter I was coaching used the "fluffy" term to mean nothing said in a JD really means much. I am not sure HR managers know how to get the information out of the hiring manager to write a more exciting job description. So as the recruiter you can ask the questions that create an exciting job posting from a regulation (read: boring and not very descriptive) job description. I'm going to make the form I use available as a download (no email required) in the next day or so.

thank you for reading!

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