Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Writing an Effective Job Description for Recruiting New Employees

When your small business starts to feel the strain of the ever increasing workload it's time to consider recruiting new staff. Whether it's your first time taking on a new employee or if you simply want to improve your recruiting methods a good place to start is the job advertisement.

Browsing on online job boards, you'll see a variety of different job descriptions which vary in format and length and disclose different information. You could pick one of these, copy the layout and structure, insert your own information and release it on behalf of your company - but is this really the most effective form of recruiting? Job specifications and advertisements can play a huge part in what calibre of candidate you attract, and the more information you can provide in your job spec, the more relevant your applicants can be.

Filtering through application forms can be a time consuming activity (and in business time is money!). Sometimes you might find that none of the applicants are relevant or, if they do reach the interview stage, aren't suitable for the job. In order to streamline your recruiting process and attract relevant candidates for the position you need to tell viewers of your job advertisement EXACTLY what you want from them rather than writing a brief generic spec, the more effort you put into your job description the less time will be wasted at the interview stage.

When compiling the specification for a job you should aim to include the correct information on all of the following:

Job title: It may be wise to include synonyms of the job title e.g. a cleaner could also be referred to as a domestic operative.

Wage: This could be an hourly rate or annual salary. If you're not entirely sure write "negotiable depending on experience".

Brief summary of main duties: Describe a typical day under employment at your organisation.

Attributes/Experience: This is incredibly important; if you want someone with experience state what type of experience they need and how much of that experience they need to have (extensive, some).

Personality requirements: This is particularly important if it's a customer-facing role. The successful applicant may need to have a polite manner and a confident approach to customers.

Any physical requirements: Does the job involve long periods of standing of heavy lifting? Note them here.

Preferred specialist knowledge: This could be familiarisation with a certain CMS, or software.

Qualifications: This may refer to academic qualifications or industry specific qualifications (FLT licence, Food Hygiene and Safety Certificate etc.)

Additional Information: Include anything the candidate should know regarding the job they're applying for that hasn't been covered above. This could be regarding the location, is it accessible by public transport? If not, tell the applicants as this could deem some candidates irrelevant.

Job advertisements are just that - adverts. So you need to sell the position to potential employees and give them information that makes them want to apply for the position (rather than just apply for it because "it's a job"). Include information on:

Possible career progression opportunities within the company Any training that will be provided Any bonuses, performance-based or otherwise With a shortage of jobs available, there are many unemployed people looking for work. Failing to provide adequate information in your job advertisement you'll attract a high number of irrelevant applicants - which wastes yours and the job seekers' time.

If you need help recruiting employees, online recruitment companies can help to streamline your entire recruiting process. They do this by filtering only the most suitable applicants for the advertised role, which saves from doing the time consuming and often tedious task yourself.


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Written by Stephanie Staszko on behalf of Blue Octopus online recruitment http://www.blueoctopus.co.uk/ This writing an effective job description http://www.blueoctopus.co.uk/blogtopus/index.php/400/writing-effective-job-description-recruiting-employees/ post was originally published on Blue Octopus blog.


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