Write compelling and unbiased job descriptions

This is a part of a series of articles on hiring and recruiting.

People vet a job based on the job description. If it’s well-written, they may be excited about the job, and give it precedence.

Content and format

• Your post should market the company and job. Don’t write the job posting as just a description of the job. A good job description markets the role. Tell them what will be interesting about the work and the team. What type of problems will they solve? Why is the company doing something valuable in the world? Characterize the role enough so they can get a concrete idea of what it’s like.

• Focus on them, not on you. The job description should make it easy for them to see what the job will be like. Describe things like: here’s what you’ll be doing, these are the problems you’ll be focused on. This is what your team will look like, and this is how you’ll know if this is a good role for you.

• Test what you write with existing team members. Ask them if they would be excited by the position. It’s not finished until its exciting.

• Include a section for “Interview Process”. Include a short section that describes the interview process. This is a great example from ReachSuite

  

Fight bias

• Use anti-bias tools like textio (paid), joblint (free), and gender decoder (also free) to make your job postings appeal to a wider audience. Even effective writers will find things to improve.

• Make sure you’re following the law. Some locations require you to post salary ranges (I believe Colorado is one such state). Other states require you to tell the pay scale of the job if requested (California). Consider posting the salary in the job description, even if it’s not required.

• Be explicit about what requirements require. Women tend to not apply for a role unless they meet 100% of the requirements, while men will apply even if they only meet 60% of the qualifications. Add language like this: If you feel like you don’t meet all of the requirements for this role, we encourage you to apply anyways. We know the confidence gap and imposter syndrome gets in the way of meeting incredible candidates, and don’t want it to get in the way of meeting you.

• Prune your requirements down to what is actually need for the role. Don’t artificially constrain the position beyond what is essential for the role.

Did I miss anything?

I’d love to hear what else you like to see in job descriptions. And if you have good examples you’d like to share, send them my way!

Thank you

Alexa Stefanko took my stilted wording for the “don’t meet these requirements?” and made it infinitely better, so I copied her wording in the post above. Colin Smith from ReachSuite inspired the section on including info on the interview format.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay