The first contact your candidate has with your company is through your job description. This is the moment applicants decide whether they’re fit for the role and have the abilities and skills to be successful in it. The benefits of writing a strong job description goes from high applicant conversion rates to having a faster screening process. So, we’ve put together everything you need to know about writing a job description that will attract qualified talent and help your team recruit efficiently. Keep reading!
In this blog post, we’ll cover:
- What a job description is;
- Benefits of a strong job description;
- How to write a job description;
What is a job description?
A job description is exactly what it sounds like! It’s a description of an open role within your organization, that contains all the necessary information needed for applicants to understand and learn more about your company, job activities for that role, required skills and qualifications needed to be successful in that role and more.
What makes your description stand out from others will be the information that you provide and your company’s unique differentials such as benefits and salary offered, values and mission, team and work environment.
Benefits of writing an effective job description
In this competitive job market, it’s extremely important to learn how to write a job description that stands out from your competitors and that can attract a high volume of visitors and convert them into applicants.
If your job description isn’t clear, you most likely will lose applicants or receive candidates that don’t fit your requirements, which will ultimately slow down your hiring process.
A transparent and effective job description can bring a number of benefits that impact not only your recruiting team but candidates as well.
Benefits of writing a strong job description
- Reducing turnover:
By creating a job description that is transparent and communicates clearly to applicants what the role requires of them, you can decrease your chances of having a high turnover rate. When job expectations and work environment are clear and aligned from the very beginning with candidates, this prevents confusion about role activities once they become employees.
- Attracting the right candidates
Job descriptions that have too little information about the role will most likely attract unqualified candidates. It’s important to clearly state what the daily activities are, the skill and qualification requirements that your candidates should and could have and as well as what is expected in the role (ex: results that should be achieved). This way, you only attract candidates that truly fit the job requirements.
- Increase visitor to applicant conversion rates
It’s important to keep your job description visually appealing using bullet points and sentences that are straight to the point. On average, use five to six bullet points per everytopic (activities, requirements, desired qualifications, benefits etc.) within your job description. Do not forget to add your benefits, salary and other differentials, as well as a short passage about your company.
How to write a Job Description?
Here are the main topics that cannot be missing:
- Title
- Company and role description excerpt
- Daily responsibilities and activities
- Required qualifications and skills
- Salary and Benefits
Title
Writing a title may sound like a simple task, but a bad title can truly harm your entire hiring process.
Not only should your job title refer directly to the role, but it should be clear and objective. Avoid terms that only make sense to your company or team, and terms that aren’t industry standard.
Company and role description
It’s important to add a short paragraph about your company, what it does or offers, as well as an excerpt about the role. Even though you might have company information on your careers page, repeating information is beneficial due to the fact that some applicants may never land on your careers page.
Daily responsibilities and activities
Adding daily job activities and expected responsibilities is a great way to give candidates an overview of what it would look like working in the role. Help them envision their day-to-day by adding a bulleted list of the most important tasks they’d be responsible for. This will also help candidates understand whether or not they’re qualified for the position.
Required qualifications and skills
The most important information you can add to your job description are the required qualifications and skills your candidate needs to be successful in the role. This can include both soft and hard skills, specific credentials or education, personality traits, amongst others.
Make a bulleted list of the qualifications that are extremely important (the candidate MUST have), as well as a list of nice-to-have skills. These are the ‘extra’ abilities that you’d like your candidate to possess, but wouldn’t be detrimental to the role if they didn’t have them.
Salary and Benefits
Adding your company’s benefits is another very important detail that makes your job description stand out from others. Use your benefits and company differentials as an opportunity to attract talented candidates and make your organization stand out amongst others.
Go beyond the normal benefits package! If your company offers benefits that are truly unique to your organization, this is the moment to showcase them. These may include, flexible work hours, hybrid work, gym memberships, free lunches, transportation discounts, employee development plans and much more.
Lastly, finish your job description with a passage as to why your candidate should work for your organization. Include previous mentioned company characteristics, benefits, team and company environment. This will excite your candidates and push them to hit that apply button!
How can we help?
Enlizt helps teams across the globe make their hiring process more efficient, through humanized and innovative features.
Build your custom career’s page and job descriptions within the platform and customize it according to your needs. Add images, videos and format your information to make it attractive to any incoming visitors.
If you want to learn more, click here to speak to our team!
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