Learn How To Create Efficient Job Posting

Whether you’re looking to hire an admin pro or a contract employee to help with busy seasons, learning about how to write a great job post can help a company of any age and size. You might be looking to refresh a dusty posting or write your first, and we’re walking you through the nuts and bolts.

1. The time spent designing your job posting will save you from answering questions on the phone.
2. A detailed posting will help you weed out unqualified applicants so that you only get to the interview stage with great fits.
3. A posting with exact duties helps with employee retention because employees will have a good understanding of their duties and responsibilities (costly turnover averted!)
4. Posting a well-written job description communicates a high level of company professionalism, which will help attract quality applicants. Your hiring approach is part of your brand, and the same way customers flock to trusted and professional brands, so does top talent.

Know your audience

Before we get into how to put together an effective posting, take a moment to think about how potential candidates are reading your posting. If you’re posting it online, then you can safely assume that people will most likely read it on their smartphones, so keeping it short and to the point is more important than ever.

Even if you plan to circulate a printed copy of your job posting, it’s a best practice only to include what candidates need to know and leave out what’s nice to know.

Going in with this approach also helps you cut down on time you’ll spend crafting your job posting.

Important points for your job posting:

• Make sure the posting is easy to read.
• Include a company overview
• Provide an overview of the position in a brief paragraph
• Summarize the personality characteristics of good candidates
• List the position’s responsibilities.
• List the position’s job requirements.
• Provide additional information as required

There are three main parts to a good job posting, with some additional sections that you can include or omit depending on your business needs.

Company overview

Once you write this section, you can copy and paste it into future postings, updating as needed. This section allows job seekers to decide if they’re a good fit for your company based on their values. For example, some people choose to apply to a company of only a specific size, preferring to be part of a small team or join a large company with several departments.

Some information you might include:

• Overview of your company’s service offering
• Size of organization/# of employees
• Seasonal (or not)

Even if you only write one line about your company, it can be a reasonable frame of reference for a job seeker.

Position summary

It’s always a good idea to give an overview of the role in a brief paragraph. Unlike a list of responsibilities (that’s up next), this is your opportunity to communicate the role’s intent.

Some questions to get you started:

• Is this a new role?
• Who is it reporting to?
• What do you want the position to help you achieve over the next 6 to 12 months?

The last thing you should know before making your job posting is personality characteristics. In a paragraph following the position summary, this is your opportunity to showcase your company’s culture while sharing the traits you feel help your employees become successful. If a great job candidate likes what they read, they might pick your company over another.