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Writing winning job descriptions

Four surefire strategies for selling your job descriptions.

Flip to the newspaper classifieds, and you’ll see hourly and part-time job descriptions that could fit inside fortune cookies. They’re short, confusing and sometimes mysterious. Just what does this abbreviation-littered job listing mean: “Ass’t. DP for cyr. mfr. wanted for wkdy PT empl?” Who knows.

Just because most hourly workers don’t have to put on a tie or skirt each morning doesn’t mean they don’t want robust job descriptions with rich detail and telling copy. Your company could be offering fantastic, one-of-a-kind jobs, but no one would ever know it.

At SnagAJob.com, we see a dramatic difference in the application flow to job listings when the descriptions are made over to be compelling, accurate and meticulously detailed. This is especially important to small and medium-sized businesses because your name may not be as well known as some of the bigger guys, which means job seekers aren’t aware of who you are what you do (and what they would need to do if they worked for you).

Here are just a few of the guidelines SnagAJob.com uses when advising the employers who post on our online job board and when creating job descriptions ourselves:

1. Choose your words carefully.
It’s important that you remember who you’re talking to when crafting job descriptions. It’s the job seekers who read your postings, not the veteran employees who already know all the office lingo. With that in mind, pick and choose from your lexicon with purpose. The same words and phrases you might paint your company with in other channels, such as advertising, public relations and even internally, may not be appropriate when writing ads for your open positions. Avoid buzzwords, marketing-ease and industry speak, but also avoid patronizing or speaking down to your audience.

EXAMPLE
Bad: Private specialty clothing seeks experienced team member to oversee sales transactions.
Good: Small clothing boutique looking for an experienced cashier.

2. Don’t forget the perks.
Do you offer employee discounts? What about free training? Flexible scheduling? Do your employees get to work outdoors in warm weather? These are all benefits you should strongly think about mentioning within your job descriptions. Many job seekers place a high value on perks such as these and consider them in tandem with wages when deciding on whether or not to accept job offers. Smaller businesses can also boast an “intimate working environment” where it’s “easy for each employee to assert their individuality due to a smaller workforce.” See how easy that was?

3. Shed a positive light.
In small and medium-sized business, employee responsibilities may vary more greatly than in bigger companies. For example, whereas large conglomerates may hire a cleaning crew to do the dirty work, small business owners might cut costs by asking employees to take turns with those kinds of chores. Duties like this don’t have to be seen as negative—here’s how you can turn it into something positive that will attract job seekers rather than scare them away:
 
EXAMPLE
Bad: Since we’re a small company and can’t afford to hire a housekeeping staff, our employees are required to perform daily cleaning tasks.
Good: Taking pride in our office’s appearance, we maintain a do-it-yourself attitude when it comes to upkeep. This saves on housekeeping costs so we can afford to take our employees out to lunch, or give workers a paid day off on their birthdays.

4. Get online now.
In the beginning of this article, we talked about the cramped classified ads in which you’re bound by character limits, and extra syllables come at a price. But gaining increased real estate for your job descriptions is only one reason for taking job postings online. The second reason is the size of your audience. More than three quarters of Americans have access to the Internet, whether it’s via a home PC, at the office or through another community resource such as a school or library. For smaller companies, this means more people will see your name and thus, you’ll receive more applicants. Increased ‘Net access coupled with the proven speed and ease at which job seekers can apply to jobs on the Web has made online job searches the preferred method of American job seekers. Finally, depending on the job board you use, the success (or failure) of your online job postings is measurable – a benefit not possible in print classifieds. You should be able to find out how many people are visiting your job postings, and see the immediate effect of tweaking the tiniest phrase or the biggest headline. At SnagAJob.com, we advise using a mix of recruitment tactics, including classified ads, but we strongly believe your online presence should anchor this mix.

At SnagAJob.com, creating job descriptions that work is just one of the tenets of our hourly recruitment strategy – a strategy with a consistent, proven foundation that works wonders when tailored to specific needs, like small and medium-sized businesses. In our future blogs, we’ll explore more of these hourly hiring disciplines and how they can help streamline your recruitment practices.