How can you improve your job descriptions to attract better candidates?

Consult with employees in that role, team leads, and the manager needing the role filled. Write down intake notes during these brief consultations related to workflow, tools, processes, and expectations. Use the specific HR hiring requirements with the intake notes gathered from the initial consultation to create a rough draft of the job description. Now synthesize, revise, and consolidate the content into bullet points to clearly disclose the most important job details.

I agree that Keywords can optimize job descriptions for search engines, job boards, and candidate’s searches. Additionally, alternative keywords can useful to use when writing job descriptions. For example, the open position may be for an aerospace design engineer, but the alternative keyword or title may be automotive design engineer.

To attract top candidates, enhance job descriptions by: 1. Clarity: Clearly define roles and responsibilities. 2. Keywords: Use relevant industry and skill keywords. 3. Engagement: Make descriptions engaging and concise. 4. Benefits: Highlight compensation, benefits, and growth opportunities. 5. Culture: Showcase your company culture and values. 6. Requirements: Specify must-have qualifications and preferred skills. 7. Inclusivity: Promote diversity and inclusion efforts. 8. Feedback: Collect input from current employees for improvements. 9. SEO: Optimize descriptions for search engines. 10. Consistency: Maintain a consistent format across postings.

The best job descriptions have five parts (happy to share an anonymized example - just message me). 1) 2-3 sentences about the company and its mission 2) 2-3 sentences describing the role, in a way that ties back to the company mission 3) 4-5 descriptors of the candidate. For example: "A self-aware and open leader, you are fueled by the opportunity to develop, mentor and empower team members." 4) 4-5 descriptors of candidate's impact: "You will elevate the strategic impact of the HR function. You will scale HR policies, systems and approaches across the organization, and share your knowledge and expertise broadly." 5) Requirements: Years of experience, industry focus, technical or role-specific skills.

An easy way to evaluate whether your job description is simple and inclusive is to share it with someone who doesn't know anything about the position and ask them if it makes sense to them. If they can understand what the role entails, you are on the right track. If they find it confusing, ask what they don't understand and phrase those areas differently.

Everyone loves bullet points but over 50+ bullet points are a hard pass. The same reason hiring managers and recruiters prefer not to have to read a 3+ long resume unless it has specific relevant information. Candidates do not want to have to read 3+ paragraphs or 50+ bullet points. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point.

A/B testing is a good idea for most online content. Still, there's a major caveat with jobs: if you've rejected any applicants, you shouldn't change any duties, location criteria, or basic requirements on that posting. Instead, start over and post it again. The risk is that a rejected applicant may have met the new requirements had they applied after the change. This can give the appearance that the rejection was for some other reason. The reason for significant changes should also be documented. For A/B testing, I recommend changing formatting, providing more info about the business, making minor word changes, or revisiting your sourcing strategy to reach more candidates. These approaches can make a big difference.

Adding a verified contact (LinkedIn or Email) to the Job Description, either the recruiter managing the candidate applications, an internal employee that can easily answer questions about the company or application process- kind of a "go-to" employee to help future new hires get a feel for your organizational leadership or at least have an outreach contact. Proactively close or take down Job Descriptions.