Turning a Job Description into an Enticing Job Posting

In today's labor market, it is critical to differentiate a job posting from a job description. In this article, we discuss the purpose of job postings and job descriptions, and how you can leverage your job descriptions to create optimized job postings.

The Purpose of Job Descriptions

Job descriptions are legally binding documents that can be viewed as the internal blueprint of a job. They should contain a comprehensive overview of the position, detailed job responsibilities, and candidate qualifications/requirements for the position. Job descriptions should provide a full rundown of what the job entails, including physical requirements for the position. Job descriptions are meant to be used for various purposes including performance evaluations, career development, organizational planning, and legal compliance.

Job descriptions should include:

·        Job Summary

·        Duties/Responsibilities

·        Required Skills / Abilities

·        Education and Experience

·        Physical Requirements

As a best practice, companies should have all their employees sign up-to-date job descriptions for the job they hold. When an employee signs a job description, they agree to perform the job duties as described in the job description. Should performance issues arise, a signed job description gives the company leverage to pursue corrective action with the employee, up to and including termination.

The Purpose of Job Postings

While much of the content in a job posting often mirrors the information included in a job description, the intent is very different. Job postings, sometimes referred to as job advertisements, are marketing documents created to encourage candidates with the right experience, qualifications, passions, etc., to apply for a job opening. Job postings are published on career sites, job boards, and other locations where prospective job seekers congregate.

Creating a Job Posting from a Job Description

A job posting should take the most important duties and qualifications from a job description but make it appealing to a prospective candidate. While job descriptions should be purely factual in nature, the best job postings have personality. They tend to have more succinct job responsibilities and qualifications when compared to a job description, but will include some additional information, such as a tagline and company summary.

Let’s say you are working for a small, family-run manufacturing company, and you are hiring a Sales Manager. Your job description may look like the following:

To turn this into a job posting, you can use the following structure:

1. Tagline / Lead In
2. Position Summary (1-2 sentences)
3. (Optional) Highlight work environment
4. Essential Job Functions (approx. 5 most important)
5. Qualifications
6. Company Summary

 If you compare the job posting to the job description, you will see the job posting is shorter and includes enough information to effectively summarize the role, but removes non-critical information that is less appealing to prospective job seekers. For example, negatively slanted items such as resolving customer complaints and staffing problems is important to include in a job description, but since it is unlikely this would help to attract talent, can usually be left off the job posting.

When done well, job postings help candidates succinctly understand WHY they should want to work for the company in this capacity. As such, starting with an enticing lead in and including a quick rundown on the selling points of the company help to differentiate your company and opening from similar roles posted by your competitors.

Conclusion

Differentiating your job postings from job descriptions by using language and a structure that advertises the opening to job seekers will help to attract a stronger candidate pool. If you are posting your job descriptions, try using this method and measure the impact it makes!