Improving the selling capability of your job descriptions

Why awareness is critical Many candidates who were initially interested will turn away after reading dull and poorly written job descriptions. Misleading job descriptions can also lead to new hire turnover when the job described is completely different than the job discovered on the first day.

Best practices

• Test your firm’s job descriptions against those at competitive firms. Simply conduct a blind side-by-side test (where the job descriptions have no company name on them), then ask a sample of people in the field to rank the most exciting job descriptions for similar jobs.
• Survey potential applicants to develop a list of the words and phrases that would excite them about this job.
• Video job descriptions involving the team reveal much more excitement than any written job description can.
• Change the ratio of the words used so that the percentage tilts towards the persuasive aspects of the job description.
• To find diverse candidates, consider an approach tried by Google. Allow a team of your own diverse employees to rewrite the job description, to make it friendlier to your target diversity group.