Background Screening | 6 Step Checklist to Crafting the Perfect Job Description
Background Screening | I’ll never forget the time I was sitting opposite a client taking a brief for a new position in her team and when I asked her if she had a position description she literally scribbled a few bullet points on to aPost-It note and handed it to me across the table.
Was she serious?
Apparently so.
I should also point out that the all too common “We’re hoping to create the job around the best candidate depending on their previous experience” never really cut it with me either.
So here’s a step-by-step job description checklist for any business owner or hiring manager thinking about bringing somebody new into their team.
1. You can’t not write a job description
It’s not uncommon for an employer to know that they definitely need to bring somebody new into their business, but to not have carefully thought out exactly what it is that the new team member will be doing.
We’ve written about this previously. This is a dangerous way to start. From experience, the very first thing a candidate thinks if their potential new employer (or recruiter for that matter) can’t provide them with a detailed job description is either that the job doesn’t exist, or that the company doesn’t really care much about their employees.
Not a great impression to make.
Similarly no employer wants to hear a team member say, “Sorry but that’s not in my job description”. Every manager wants staff happy to go beyond the call of duty. However the “call of duty” still needs to be documented in some way.
2. The position title must be a true reflection of the role
Don’t make a job title too vague or ‘creative’. You will just confuse people or perhaps even put them off.
Internally you might decide to call your receptionist the “Director of First Impressions”, but on a job description that you share with a candidate during an interview it should still make reference to “Receptionist”.
Here are a few examples of real job titles I have seen on job descriptions that required some ‘translation’ before they really made sense to the relevant candidates.
- Dream Fulfiller = Financial Services Consultant
- Creative Guru = Creative Writer
- Web Wizard = Web Developer
- Office Dynamo = Office All-rounder
- Sales Ninja = Salesperson
A good job title will have the following qualities:
- It accurately reflects the nature of the job and the duties being performed
- It does not exaggerate the importance of the role
- It is free of gender or age implications
- It is generic enough that it can be compared to similar jobs in the industry for the purposes of equity in pay and conditions
- It is self-explanatory for recruitment purposes (in most online job searches, the job title is the main keyword searched). -Recruit Loop
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