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If You Want Qualified Applicants, Write a Job Description That Makes Sense

Let's talk about job descriptions.

Some of them have become so long, complicated, and unnecessarily wordy that it's difficult to figure out what the employer actually wants.

Pages of responsibilities. Endless lists of qualifications. Industry terminology piled on top of more industry terminology.

And somewhere in all that verbiage is supposed to be an actual job.

Whatever happened to simply explaining what the position involves and what qualifications someone needs to do it?

One particularly frustrating problem is the failure to distinguish between qualifications that are absolutely required and those that would simply be nice to have.

You know, as in a section that says very clearly that the following requirements are absolutely necessary to have. Then have a section of Nice to Have Requirements. If you don’t have them it’s not necessarily a deal breaker but the more of them you have obviously the better chance you’ve got of an interview.

Does the applicant need ten years of experience, or would seven years of directly relevant experience be acceptable?

Is a particular certification mandatory, or merely preferred?

Is previous experience in the employer's industry essential, or would comparable experience in another industry qualify?

These are not minor details. These are, in real life, make or break details for many job applicants.

When everything in a job description sounds mandatory, perfectly capable applicants may decide not to bother. Meanwhile, other applicants may submit their résumés without understanding which qualifications are genuinely non-negotiable.

You wonder why employers complain about receiving applications from people who don't meet their requirements? Well maybe if you wrote crystal clear job descriptions you’d easily eliminate half or more of the confusion.

Then there's the matter of salary.

Why do so many job descriptions still fail to provide meaningful compensation information?

People work to earn a living, not for the hell of it. Compensation isn't an embarrassing subject that should be hidden until the final stages of an interview like it’s a huge secret.

It's one of the most important considerations in deciding whether a position is worth pursuing.

An applicant might be perfectly qualified for a job but have no interest in accepting a salary that's $20,000 below their current earnings.

Why waste that person's time - or the employer's - by withholding the information?

Salary transparency requirements are improving matters in some states, but clear compensation information should be a normal part of advertising a position, regardless of whether the law requires it.

Employers want qualified applicants who understand the position and are genuinely interested in the opportunity.

Fair enough.

Then give the people who are applying the information they need to make that decision.

At the end of the day, the hiring industry needs to realize a painful fact or two.

Job applications are not about pieces of paper called résumés being submitted. There are living breathing people behind those résumés who are supporting families and who have goals in life. These people should be respected the same way the company wants to be respected.

The other painful fact is that the more a company persists in hiring the wrong people to fill their jobs, because of job descriptions that are not crystal clear, the more money is being wasted at the expense of productivity and profit. Is that how you want to run your business?

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If you are stuck in your job consideration process because of all the variables, we offer a service that does a matching between your resume and up to 10 different job descriptions.

This has helped many of our clients hone their skills much better as far as selected jobs to apply to.

Once they have used our system, they have been able to pick and choose which job to apply to with greater precision and end up getting interviews.

Find Out More About Our Resume Job Match Review Service

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Maureen McCullough is a veteran resume writer with over 25 years experience in the field, serving clients nationwide. With a deep understanding of hiring, job searching, nationwide job markets and candidate needs - she offers resume writing for all levels from entry level to executive and C-Suite.

In addition, she offers candidate value proposition services which improve what candidates bring to the table. These include career strategy, career transition, career development, executive coaching and consulting, interview preparation and LinkedIn profile optimization.

She is the creator of the exclusive FAR → Foundation → Accomplish → Rebrand™ executive career strategy framework which gives executive clients our best possible flagship service for their career advancement.

She is also the creator of the Resume Job Match Review, a sophisticated yet extremely practical structured analytical framework based on her own proprietary software which compares your résumé against job descriptions you wish to apply for, helping you cut down on mismatches.

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