Six Mistakes to Avoid in Job Descriptions

Just consider, for a while, the resources and time your company spends on marketing their products and attracting ideal customers. Ask yourself, how much does your company spent on writing the descriptions of your products and services, web pages and such? The amount of time, capital and other resources spent on perfecting these descriptions are high (as they should be, no doubt).

However, little thought is given to the job descriptions. The reason for this is simple: majority of the companies take their employees for granted. If they pay half as much attention to their potential employees than they do to their potential customers, it would ensure that only competent people become the part of their company. As a result, work quality would surely improve.

Therefore, it is important to know what mistakes you are making when writing a Job Description, and avoid them at all cost. Let us discuss some of the most common mistakes.

Six Mistakes to Avoid When Posting Job Descriptions

• Reusing the Same Job Descriptions
• Leaving Out Important Info From Job Description
• Drafting Job Description with Single Input
• Making Grammar and Formatting Mistakes
• Not Differentiating Between Desired and Required Skills
• Not Filtering Job Descriptions for Mistakes or Legal Issues

Reusing the Same Job Descriptions

Like any other thing in life, positions also tend to evolve as time passes. Reusing the same job description year after year is bound to attract candidates who are not perfect for the job. Make sure you write a new job description for the job sporadically, if not every time.

Need help writing a new posting? Check out The Secrets to Writing the Perfect Job Description.

Leaving Out Important Info from Job Description

Just mentioning the essential job functions for a position and leaving at that is not good enough for a good job description. A job description should include summary of the position, qualifications required, responsibilities, critical abilities, physical requirements (if any), and the working conditions provided at your office.

You also want to include workplace attributes your job seekers want. Check out What Do Job Candidates Want? to learn what excites today's job seekers.

Drafting Job Description with Single Input

Sometimes, job descriptions are drafted with only input from existing employees. This is a bad practice that often leaves out vital aspects of the job. Human resource personnel and managers should also provide input in describing a certain position, as their perspective is important to the process. Try and follow a particular pattern when you’re writing a description, and keep the outlets available for CV templates in mind. This would help you cover each and every aspect needed.

Multiple inputs are always best. Scorecards are another recruiting feature that can make the hiring process more collaborative.

Making Grammar and Formatting Mistakes

As said earlier, the job description represents your organization. So any spellings and grammar mistakes or bad formatting will portray a negative image of your company to your potential employees. Save yourself from the embarrassment, and proofread your job descriptions.

Rethinking what you thought you knew about job postings can also help your descriptions stand out.

Not Differentiating Between Desired and Required Skills

Often Hiring Managers desire that an employee at certain position have a qualification or skill they would like the candidate to have, but it is not necessary for the position. Making the distinction between required and desired skills is essential to lure in candidates from the right skill area that is required for the job. When failing to do so, it results in eliminating certain candidates that might have been perfect for the job but didn’t apply because they didn’t have the said qualification or skill. It is a good practice to specifically mention the Minimum qualification and skill set needed for position.

The HiringThing Guide to Increasing Your Applicant Traffic can help you reimagine what skills are required and what's just arbitrary. 

Not Filtering Job Description for Mistakes or Legal Issues

Once the job description is complete, it is only smart to run it by both the legal and human resource departments in the company to look for any mistakes or legal issues that your job description may contain. It is very important that you do this before you send it for print or publishing it online. If you fail to do so, you can be at the risk of one of the costliest mistakes you may ever commit in your career. Many hiring managers have run into such troubles for posting something they shouldn’t have, in job descriptions, which got them stuck in legal issues, thus risking their career.

Once you get those descriptions down, Seven Steps to Selecting the Right Job Board can help you strategize where to post. 

Five Tips for Creating Strong Job Postings

Avoiding these mistakes is only half the battle. Competition for top candidates is strong, so once your job description is accurate and complete, use these tips to write and promote succinct, sharp postings that stand out.

1. Use Keywords

No one asks you to become a search engine optimization (SEO) guru, but inserting a bit of SEO into job postings could strengthen your job posting for Google users. 

SEO best practices encourage including keywords in your job postings so candidates can find your offer and understand exactly what the position entails. The right keywords will help Google serve your job posting up to relevant job seekers.  Remember not to overuse keywords or your job posting will read like spam.

2. Use Power Words

Be sure to use power words in job postings to hook candidates. The essential language patterns for job postings include:

• A job title: Include the name of the position, and up to three words that would make it attractive to applicants (shorter is better here).
• Introduction: The opening paragraph should include the five most exciting/relevant aspects of your position.
• Company Information: Include the company name, history, work culture, and benefits employees enjoy.
• Requirements: What requirements are absolutely necessary for individuals in this position to succeed. Remember, don't include arbitrary caveats like, "must be able to lift 25 pounds" unless it's absolutely necessary.
• Reasons Applicants Should Apply: Today's HR professionals agree that recruiting is more like marketing than ever. What about the role or organization would be appealing to your top job candidates?

3. Format Your Posting Properly

Your job posting should be appealing to a candidate’s eye, so format it accordingly. Short paragraphs and sentences, active verbs, strong information scent, bullet lists, subheadings, bolded words, and visuals make postings more appealing to job seekers. 

4. Utilize Multimedia

Most people are visually-oriented, and content with visual elements like infographics, pictures, and videos rank better in terms of SEO.  Consider using multimedia to help your job postings stand out from the crowd!

• Create a video: Video is one of the most widely shared types of content online. Consider filming a job ad to boost views and shares and, therefore, attract more candidates. Tools such as Animoto can help.
• Create an infographic: Consider Canva or Venngage to turn text-heavy job postings into compelling infographics. 

5. Promote Your Job Postings on Social Media

Share job postings on social media where your ideal candidates spend time. LinkedIn, Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, and even TikTok are great places to promote your open jobs! 

Five Things to Consider When Deciding Where to Post Jobs

The world of online job postings is large and complex, and deciding which job boards to use can feel overwhelming.

Below is a simple, five-step process that should help you devise a plan for where to post your positions. The STRAP plan stands for Strategy, Time, Resources, Audience, and Price. 

Strategy

The start of any plan should have a defining process and a sense of an ultimate goal. For posting jobs, that process starts with defining your target audience. Who do you intend to market your job to? Do you want local candidates, or would you like to cast a larger net? Are you focusing on a unique and rare job opportunity, or is the role a fairly common one? What about your competitors' current job openings, are they similar to yours? Defining the type of person you are targeting is the first step in deciding where to post.

Time

A fairly simple but important step. When do you need to fill this position? Are you looking for the best, or the best right now? How important is it to fill this position ASAP? Determine how crucial this job is to the success of your business.

Resources

How much time and resources can you dedicate to searching for this job candidate? A lot of people assume that the posting is the end of the process, but few business owners think of the amount of time it takes to sort through candidates, conduct interviews, and communicate with other team members about finding the right person. If you plan on flooding the internet with postings, make sure you have the right resources to commit that can handle the onslaught of resumes coming in.

Audience

Who are you trying to attract for this position? Is it an entry-level position, or an experienced professional you are targeting? Do you need someone who is a specialist, or are you looking for a diverse workplace? Answering these questions, and prioritizing their importance will make it easier to determine where to post your jobs online.

Price

All business decisions have a price as a core factor, and job posts are no different. There are a number of low-cost, and even free sites, that can effectively meet the needs of a lot of business customers. But you need to relate the answers to the above steps to adequately determine how much cost will enter the equation. Or possibly the availability of budget resources will answer this question for you. If you have limited money to invest in posting jobs, there are a number of things you can do to effectively start the job posting process.

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