Job descriptions.

I can’t help but shudder a bit when I hear that phrase: “Job descriptions”. I shudder because every time I imagine the state of job descriptions, I imagine a long laundry list of qualifications and requirements, and a short, general, vague, and bland company culture description statement.  I specifically shudder because, along with that statement above, I think most of us realize that job descriptions on most company websites are not ideal, strategic, or in a state that we are proud of, or, gasp, effective.

But the project itself is complicated. Updating job descriptions is a pain. I equate it to the story surrounding the Golden Gate Bridge. Some people say that painting the bridge happens every year, others say seven years, but the reality is that the bridge is painted continuously. As soon as they finish, they must start again.

Similarly, tackling your job descriptions is an on-going, never ending project. I’m sure we’d all like to think that we can update our job descriptions once, build a library of templates, gain sign-off from our hiring managers and recruiters, but the reality is that if we want job descriptions that appeal to the current market of employees, we can never stop updating them.

It’s an intimidating project. It’s a difficult project. It’s time consuming, and in a world where it’s rare that any of us has the time to tackle a project such as this, it can feel almost impossible. As with anything, you need to start somewhere.

Let’s look at the anatomy of a job description.

1. The Job Title  
2. The Company Statement
3. The Role Description Statement
4. Qualifications, Preferred and Required
5. Responsibilities
6. EEO Statements

Some companies have a variation of the above. Some have enhanced media to associate with it: employee testimonials, blogs, talent communities, leadership perspectives, and more. However, I’d argue that most companies need to back up to focus on the core list above, before moving into the supplemental material.

To prepare for this blog, I started looking at job descriptions. So. Many. Job. Descriptions. But prior to that, as part of my time in the recruitment agency world, we spent a lot of time interviewing companies to discover what content strategy made the most sense for that specific employer brand.

Where we spent most of our time in these meetings was honing in on persona development as it pertained to content strategy for external channels. One practice that I found the most meaningful wasere digging into the pros and cons of the position, or, “everything you wish your content could say, but you probably wouldn’t get away with”.

We started with two basic questions:

1. Why would someone in this position want to work here?
2. Why would someone in this position not want to work here?

Commonly, the hiring managers, recruiters, and TA leaders had a lot of answers for the first question. Where they most often struggled with was the second.

My favorite concept in marketing is that truly good marketing, truly meaningful content, a truly successful content campaign is one that has finally decided that they will not be the right fit for some people. We spend a lot of time as humans defining who we are, but where we often miss an opportunity in defining who we aren’t. People like guardrails. They like spectrums. They seek and validate both the pros and cons of your organization. And when all they hear are the bright and cheery positives, candidates become skeptical.

Take this article from AdWeek for example. Consumers (who are your candidates) want to see negative reviews – in fact, they actually help your business. Sure, if you have a ton of 1 star reviews, there’s obviously a threshold. But, based on the research, “Spiegel and PowerReviews found that purchase likelihood peaks for products with average ratings between 4.0 and 4.7 on a five-star ratings system, with those closer to 5.0 viewed with skepticism as being ‘“too good to be true.’””

To really bring this home, imagine the last time you made a relatively large purchase. Did you look at Amazon reviews? Did you notice how Amazon lists both the top (read: most helpful) positive review, and top negative review? Did you also notice how the top positive review is rarely five stars?

So, I want you to be honest (and no, you don’t need to be honest publicly), but are your job descriptions painting a reality that is too good to be true?

The reality of consumer expectations, an overwhelming distrust of everything marketing, and a politically charged environment (yay, election cycles), is that our consumers (read: candidates) don’t trust us because we are promising them an environment that sounds too perfect.

Take LinkedIn’s most recent study. This study explores what’s important to candidates as they search through our job descriptions. They then validated that survey of “what’s important to you as a candidate” with heat mapping of how eyes behave on our job descriptions.

The result was consistent:

First results? Compensation, Qualifications, and Job Details. The bottom of the list? Culture, Mission, Company Details, and Growth. Arguably, the hardest part for us to agree upon as a larger employer brand organization.

But, it’s not that I don’t think that these bottom four categories aren’t important. I’d argue that our candidates simply don’t believe them. Additionally, “our cutting-edge technology” means nothing when everyone says it. So, they get that information elsewhere. Increasingly, they’ve been going to websites like Glassdoor, Indeed, and social media to find honest reviews of our organization’s culture, mission, details, and growth.

Right now, our organizations are writing 5.0 star ranking job descriptions, when really, we should be writing 4.0 star job descriptions.

Before you ask, yes, my mind is firmly situated in reality.

Take the ad below as an example of what I mean by a 4.0 ranking. This ad was created by ChatBooks, an organization committed to making personal photo books easy, efficient, and painless. Where you compromise, as a consumer, for this product is that you lose the ability to edit, tweak, and change your layouts and design. Enter, the 4.0 star commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTTs7ewuDY8

If you don’t want to watch the entire video (it’s a whopping 3:50 long, and unbelievably, I watched the whole thing), skip straight to 2:15:

“And if you’re saying “no formatting, that’s the only reason I do photo books?!”, then this isn’t for you.”

Not only did ChatBooks use less than three minutes to define who they are, they transparently defined exactly who they weren’t.

Now, like I mentioned, I do live in a world focused firmly in reality. I realize that your organization most likely wouldn’t approve a job description that says “You’ll most likely work 12 hours a day, and that’s just the expectation, so deal with it.” I get that. But that’s why you hire people with marketing-minded critical thinking (or, in today’s political world, those of us who have the ability to spin).

Here’s how you start:

Play the Flip Switch game.

Start by find a Job Description on your Website, and turn your BS Meter Up. Find your cultural statement within your job descriptions. Example:

“… amazingly we connect, collaborate, and care. X company drives a corporate culture of shared responsibility. We love grand challenges and everyday improvements for our company and for the world. We care about each other, our clients, and the communities we live, work, and play in!”

Now flip it.

“...surprisingly, we distance ourselves, work without others, and literally could care less. Our company drives a corporate culture of you’re out for yourself. We hate solving problems, and the everyday improvements for our company and for the world. We don’t really care about each other, our clients could leave and we wouldn’t care, and the world around us really doesn’t matter.”

Why this exercise? I remember asking over 50 companies what is unique about their organization, and why people should want to work there. Want to know the most common answer?

“Our Culture.”

And while I appreciate that sentiment, and I’m sure it is true, in a sense, it does absolutely nothing for your candidates. Which is how I came up with the “flip switch” game, because when you put this phrase and get “our culture sucks”, no company in their right mind would say it.

Which leads me to – if your entire flipped statement is so completely laughable that no company out there would ever say they weren’t that, then you’re not getting specific (or honest) enough. You’re not differentiating yourself to the candidates, and you’re not passing their BS meters.

When I was researching job descriptions, I kept track of what, specifically in relation to culture, companies were looking for. These were the most common:

Accountability, Work Independently, Problem Solving, Initiative, Cross Functional Teams, Prioritization, Time Management, Oral and Written Communication, Innovator, Relationships, Collaboration, Teamw Work, Respect, Multitasking, Integrity, Self-Starter

About halfway through this list, I concluded that there are no companies that don’t want these skills. It appears we are all seeking the same thing, which, I know isn’t true. I talk to hundreds of recruiters and what works for our organization doesn’t work for theirs.  The reality is that we aren’t communicating our needs well to candidates, or if we are, they still aren’t believing it.

When you’ve finished your flip switch test, you’ll start to identify opportunities. You’ll find bland, generic statements. You’ll find loose, ambiguous terms. You’ll find commonalities with 100s of other companies. And you’ll be given the opportunity to make it right.

It’s not to say that you can’t use those keywords above. It’s to say that you have to be more specific, honest, and genuine when you do.

Example: if you, as a company, value innovation (again, who doesn’t), how do you enable innovation differently?  How is innovation unique at your organization? What are the parameters for innovation? How is that different? How might it be bad?

Another example: If you, as a company value collaboration (again, again, who doesn’t), how might it be different? Do you have a particularly siloed organization? Do your individual employees find it particularly challenging to foster collaboration? What skills might be necessary to combat, and correct this?

Yes, this process will be difficult, time consuming, and uncomfortable. But the result is a more honest, authentic job description that results in a calibration that allows for a candidate to truly decide whether or not they are looking in the right place.

After many years organizing communication efforts for local, federal, and international campaigns, Lindsey gave up her constituents for candidates upon entering the recruitment marketing world. For seven years, she worked at Symphony Talent, assisting Fortune 100 companies with their recruitment marketing content marketing strategy, attracting talent to organizations by encouraging the right fit for both the company and the candidate. She now manages a Global Employer Brand Program for Palo Alto Networks, innovating new ways to reach out to candidates, leveraging regional stories, an improved candidate experience, and pushing the boundaries of how we think about the recruitment and candidate process. 

In her allusive “free time” she can be found picking up new hobbies like Girl Scouts leadership, reading all the books, speaking for her cat, and asking her kids for the 100th time to pick up their toys. Follow her on Twitter @LindseySanford