Concise Guide to Strategic RecruitmentPart 3: Crafting a Job Description

In the pursuit of finding the ideal candidate for an open position, a well-crafted job description becomes paramount. A meticulously designed job description significantly increases the likelihood of both attracting and identifying suitable candidates. However, to achieve this, we must first grasp a few fundamental concepts.

How Candidates Interact With Job Descriptions

Note: The following section contains general observations and personal opinions so take it with a grain of salt.

Potential candidates seldom stumble upon job advertisements by chance. Most of the time, they actively seek their next job opportunity and are either browsing through job portals or are being targeted by recruiters.

In both cases, candidates are presented with an overwhelming number of job descriptions and consequently, they must decide which ones are worth their attention and ultimately, their application.

Due to time constraints, potential candidates cannot thoroughly evaluate every job description to determine a good fit before applying. Therefore, they approach the process in a statistical manner.

1. Candidates typically start by swiftly evaluating the title of the job description to gauge the specific domain it belongs to. Job titles often provide a glimpse into the business or technical domain, and candidates use this information to assess their suitability.

   The broader the domain indicated in the title, the less likely it is for highly specialized candidates to pursue it. For example, a job title like "Senior Software Engineer" implies a broader domain, which appeals to less specialized candidates and may discourage those with more specialized expertise.

   Conversely, more specific titles, such as "C#.NET Developer with event sourcing experience for a marketplace" are more likely to attract candidates who possess specialized skills in that particular area.

2. Once a candidate clicks on a job advert, their second concern emerges: Is investing time in applying for this position worthwhile in terms of potential fit?

   This evaluation typically revolves around checking the listed requirements. If a candidate possesses around 70% (or sometimes even less) of the required skills, they'll consider applying. Take a note of that as it will help in a non-intuitive way later on.

   If a candidate cannot quickly assess their suitability based on the job description, they are likely to move on.

3. Only after a potential candidate decides it's worth applying for a position do they consider whether they would enjoy working in that role. They scan the job description, searching for clues about the work environment and culture, which becomes the final deciding factor.

The Goals of a Job Description

Once a job advert is published, only a limited number of people will see it, and the higher this number, the greater the chances of the perfect candidate being among them. Thus, one of the main goals of a successful job advert is to increase its visibility and reach.

However, as candidates start applying, the number of applications may exceed the capacity of the screening process. Consequently, most of the filtering will happen in the pre-screening process, which comes with certain drawbacks that we will discuss in the next chapter of this guide.

Fortunately, a well-designed job description can alleviate this situation by acting as an automatic filter, discouraging unsuitable candidates from applying. However, caution should be exercised in order to avoid inadvertently filtering out exceptional candidates.

The Title

To attract the highest number of relevant candidates, the title should convey the core requirement of the position in the most specific manner possible. This approach also reduces the chances of unsuitable candidates applying, alleviating the burden on the pre-screening process.

Expertise levels like "Junior/Regular/Senior" can be safely omitted since they are highly subjective and often vague. Furthermore, candidates' perception of these levels will differ significantly from the ones intended.

The only exception is for intern positions, as the term "intern" generally carries the same understanding for all.

Technical Skill Requirements

Let's consider the skill requirements list with regard to the 70% rule mentioned earlier. It's important to keep in mind that if the list includes auxiliary or tangent skills, there is a higher probability that candidates will apply even if they lack a significant portion of the core skills. This can pose a challenge during the pre-screening stage, as it might be difficult to identify these gaps at that point.

Therefore, it's best to include only the core skills from the skill canvas. The rest of the skills will have to be evaluated in the other stages of the recruitment process.

The listed technical requirement should be described in the most specific terms possible, mirroring the approach taken for the job title. Vague skill descriptions tend to inflate candidates' perception of their abilities and may cause an overabundance of unfit applicants.

Additionally, specifying the required years of experience for a particular technology should be avoided. Experience alone is not a comprehensive measure of expertise, and candidates are often aware of this. Numerous job advertisements require an excessive amount of experience, to the point where it has become a running joke. Consequently, candidates tend to overlook such requirements.

Instead, the expectations tied to that experience should be defined. E.g. You should be able to understand and optimize complex SQL Server execution plans. This way of phrasing it conveys the desired expertise.

Fortunately, these descriptions were already defined when creating the skill canvas.

Personal Skill Requirements

We should refrain from listing personal skills in the job description. Candidates are worse at evaluating their personal skills than their technical ones. We have never met a single person that said they are not a great problem solver or fast learner.

By including personal skills in the job description, candidates mentally check them off while scanning the requirements, leading them to apply even if they lack core technical skills.

However, it may be advantageous to incorporate core personal skills in the job advert, albeit in a different manner. Rather than asking candidates to evaluate themselves against a list of personal skills, we want them to realize their unsuitability for the position in case they lack them.

To achieve this, a workday scenario may be described, placing a strong emphasis on the required personal skills. For example, instead of stating, The perfect candidate must have excellent time management skills, the job description should elaborate on how these skills are connected to the job: You'll have to assess priorities in a tight deadline environment and act upon them.

This approach discourages individuals lacking the specified personal skills from applying, without them even knowing they have just performed a self-evaluation.

Stating the Budget

Should the budget for the position be disclosed in the job description? There is no definitive answer to this question so let's consider the pros and cons of stating the budget upfront.

Everything Else

At this stage, the job description is completed. Any remaining content can be safely removed to keep it concise.

If candidates are genuinely interested in the organization, they will likely seek more information on its website or social media platforms. An unnecessarily lengthy job advert will only discourage potential applicants from reading it.

Next Steps

At this point, applications will start coming in an amount surpassing the available screening resources. Next, we will explore pre-screening techniques and determine the optimal allocation of resources for each candidate.