Your job descriptions should really be treated like marketing copy. They have to be informative, dynamic and easy to find, all while attracting the right people. It’s not easy to craft the perfect job description, but here are 5 tips that can certainly help!

1) Get Shorter and Sweeter

If you think you’ve already boiled your job descriptions down enough, think again. We are a snack-sized society (in our reading anyway) and anything longer than a few paragraphs will get skimmed and skimming leads to a whole bunch of unqualified applicants in your system. David Martin, CTO and founder of Three Spark Global, said in an ERE article:

“The job description is too long. Internet consumption has trained people to read snippets of text. At the same time the Internet has made is cost effective for job descriptions to grow. These two trends run counter to each other, resulting in a negative impact.”

2) Get Unique

Let’s can the canned job descriptions already. If your job description could honestly describe a job at any of your competitors’ companies, you aren’t getting creative enough. Check out what else is out there and craft your descriptions to pop! Job search experts at HireArt suggest making your job descriptions memorable:

“Make sure candidates remember your job even after they close the browser window. It can be funny, sweet, intellectual, or any other style as long as it stands out.”

3) Get Search Friendly

Job seekers aren’t exactly hitting the want ads anymore. Almost everyone goes online to find their next position, so job ads have to be crafted with SEO in mind. JobScience.com tells you how:

“Go onto the site where you plan to list the job and do a search as if you were a candidate. If it’s a human resources position, you may want to use both ‘Human Resources’ in the title and job description as well as the abbreviation HR. Find common keywords and use these as well as synonyms to get the best visibility and search results.”

4) Bank on Common Sense

For those job titles that are pretty universal and self-explanatory, don’t waste time and space with those common sense lists. Instead, focus on finding a real match. Small Business Trends contributor Jamillah Warner said:

“Not that you want an incompetent person on your team. But instead of focusing so heavily on every little skill set that you think you need — the ones that are often described in typical job descriptions — look for someone who can do the job, but also fit the culture.”

5) Get Perky!

Never play down, or leave out perks. This is the stuff people want to see! While establishing the requirements is essential, leave room to brag a little bit. Expert in start-up leadership and Inc.com contributor, Christina DesMarais said:

“If your company has a generous vacation policy, incredible health benefits, or a stellar 401(k) plan, you want to make sure potential hires know about these things, not to mention other little extras that people like, such as free lunches and dry cleaning.”

Now that you have the formula for great job descriptions, you have to be ready for the flood of quality candidates to come your way. That’s where Recruiterbox comes in. Our aim is to streamline and organize the entire recruiting process for both recruiters and candidates. Offering a smooth and quick hiring process has become very important in creating a positive employer brand, and for the productivity of the company as a whole.

Visit our main blog here.

Views: 59

Comment by Keith D. Halperin on April 21, 2014 at 12:58pm

Thanks, Raj. I heard somebody (not me) come up w. a good idea: If possible, after you've tweaked the details, run the JDs by the wordsmiths in Marketing to make them interesting.

-kh

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