Your Job Posting Sucks
photo by stevendepolo
Separating yourself from the pack is not always easy. Andrew Hyde, TechStars’ Boulder community director, recently published a great post on how to write a resume for landing a startup role. [We've also written about how much your resume currently sucks. If you're looking for additional tips to the ones Andrew provided it's not a bad read.]
The flip side, as one commenter pointed out, is how a company should write a job posting. Too often job ads are pure vanilla. If you removed the logo, a dozen companies could use the same post.
A burger joint in New Zealand nailed it perfectly. Definitely worth the read. With that, a few additional thoughts on how to improve your company’s job postings.
- Know thyself. Convey what it’s like to work with you and your team. What are the traits of your highly successful people? With whom do you work best? What is your management style? Don’t bullet what you want instead…
- Show your personality. Write a post that attracts the kind of person for whom you’re looking. It’s okay to not be boring. Tell a story rather than bullet out skills you need.
- But be honest – show your warts. You’re not the perfect manager. Nor is the job or company perfect. Know the downsides. Describe them in moderately gory detail. It not only sets expectations but it also allows people to opt out of applying, saving you time and potentially the brain damage of a really bad hire.
- Can the jargon. Every company has their own vernacular. Focus on the output and the rationale for doing the work rather than what the work is called.
- Help them help you. What does success look like? Where is the bar and what needs to happen to clear it? Most people don’t set out looking for an 18-month gig, it just works out that way because expectations weren’t set and they got pissed off. Clearly communicate the success metrics.
- Paint the winning scenario. If they succeed wildly, what will they get? Paint the best-case scenario – truthfully. Everyone expects to win, so start the conversation there. It also helps to align motivations with the real rewards. If I’m motivated by more responsibility then an employee of the month plaque just won’t cut it. I want to know that ahead of time.
- Your product is your environment, not your product. Enough already of the two-paragraph description of how you’re revolutionizing XYZ market. Everyone knows that’s all fluff. Don’t waste the space. Instead focus on what the candidate really cares about – the environment in which they’ll spend 8-12 hours every day.
- Don’t copy a job description from a Google search. You spend a lot of time trying to differentiate your products so why start trying to be the same now?
- Show don’t tell. We’ve covered this previously, but the idea is to convey your company’s culture and the skills you require via the posting rather a simple snoozefest of a list. Need someone detail oriented? Make a few ‘mistakes’ in the posting and somewhere convey that the right candidate will identify them in a cover letter.
- Describe a job to which you’d want to apply. If you had to get rehired for your current job what would make you want to apply? If you read what you just wrote would you be excited to apply?
- Establish hoops. While most of this is focused on the candidate, you’re the one hiring. Don’t be afraid to put candidates through their paces. This is more a marriage than a one-night stand. Have clear hurdles in place that will screen out people who don’t fit your culture or way of doing things. Assessments are gaining traction. Short job simulations are well. If you scare someone off, so be it. The cost of a bad hire is not worth the extra couple of applicants.
- (If you haven’t already done so…) Design the position for the candidate you want. Before even posting a job make sure that you know what you need out of the role. Want an ambitious self-starter? Make sure there is a career track in place beyond the role for which you’re hiring.
In sum, focus more on how well one fits you and your environment than on the skills they bring. Obviously, you need a baseline of skills but you’re not going to hire a dummy. Anyone short-listed should have the know how and what they don’t know you can teach them. But you’ll never be able to change someone’s personality.
So don’t get so blinded by one’s skills that you ignore the red flags. You won’t be ignoring them in six-months.
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