Is It Time to Change Your Approach to Job Descriptions?

When it comes to hiring, employers need to move quickly. 

After all, major costs are involved when a position is left vacant for a long time—costs that come in the form of lost revenue, diminished productivity, decreased employee engagement, and reduced team morale, not to mention the fact that 40% of candidates reject offers because another company made an offer faster. 

Naturally, HR professionals have started to templatize and automate many parts of the hiring process to speed things along, keep candidates engaged, and conserve more resources. 

And, while that’s a great strategy—at a high level—for improving hiring outcomes and reducing vacancy costs, there’s one piece of the hiring process that shouldn’t be skipped over or over-automated: the job description. 

Why Job Descriptions Matter 

Job descriptions are the first point of contact between the company and a potential candidate, meaning they set the tone for all future interactions between the two. 

They help prospective applicants understand whether they would be a good fit for the position (and company) by clearly outlining what a role involves, what skills and qualifications are required, and what the organization is all about. 

Crafting a well-structured job description with the right content and data points is crucial for attracting the best person for the job without wasting time—and it could be the difference between making a hire that sticks around and contributes meaningfully or not. 

“It’s about addressing all the things you would ask in an interview, and they would ask in an interview,” said Adam Gellert, this week’s guest on America Back to Work. 

Gellert has spent ten years researching what candidates want to know before applying to a job to build his company, HiredHippo, a hiring marketplace connecting vetted go-to-market candidates with growing companies. 

Today, what’s considered a quality job description has changed, and what’s housed within a job description has expanded far beyond just role description and qualifications to account for accessibility and inclusion, compliance, hiring for retention and culture fitness, and more. 

Advertise Purpose-Driven Work

Eighty-nine percent of employees desire a sense of purpose at work, according to a recent study by McKinsey, titled Help Your Employees Find Purpose–Or Watch Them Leave—especially Gen Z employees who value salary less than any other generation and care more about whether the work is interesting, values-aligned, and purpose-driven. 

To connect to this side of candidate preferences (and resonate with a talent base that’s getting increasingly younger), job descriptions need a clear statement describing the company’s mission, vision, work environment, culture, and other differentiators. This section should communicate why the company is the right one to work for with realistic and attractive information to yield the best candidates.

Factor In Pay Transparency 

Today’s employees want to work for employers that pay them fairly for the work they put in—and that pay all workers fairly regardless of gender, race, or disability. As a result, employers notice that greater pay transparency in job descriptions—beyond simply building trust and promoting fairness—also helps them attract and retain top talent. 

In many cases, it’s not simply about outcomes; it’s about the law.  

Today, 17 states in the U.S. have some sort of pay transparency law in place, with states like California, Colorado, and Connecticut leading the way. In November 2022, New York City started requiring employers to post salary ranges for every job posting, and more cities and states are expected to follow suit. 

To recruit the best of the best while remaining compliant as pay transparency laws tighten, HR leaders should start posting salary ranges in job descriptions. 

Highlight Work Flexibility 

Traditionally, job descriptions have always been location-based because jobs have always been location-based, but now, due to the popularization of remote and hybrid work after the pandemic, employers need to specify. 

Plus, candidates are now seeking flexible work at the beginning of the job search (65% of workers want to work remotely all the time). In fact, they can filter for remote and hybrid jobs on popular career search sites like LinkedIn and Indeed. 

When drafting a job description, employers should consider whether they can offer remote or hybrid flexibility for the role to expand the talent pool—and be sure to tag it in the job post if they do so remote candidates can seek them out. If the job requires mandatory in-person attendance, the job description should explicitly share that, too, to ensure the right people apply. 

Rethink Years of Experience… 

While experience is a quick and easy way to estimate a candidate’s competencies and capabilities, research shows that experience matters little in predicting work performance beyond the first year or two. That’s because experience doesn’t tell the whole story; it’s just a number.  

Despite having years of experience, a candidate may have stagnated or failed in previous jobs. Conversely, despite having less than the desired years of experience, a candidate may have performed exceptionally well within that narrow window. 

Plus, certain demographics won’t apply for the position if they don’t think they have enough experience for the role. As such, it’s in employers’ best interest to broaden experience ranges in job descriptions to improve the talent pipeline—and to make the hiring process as fair and inclusive as possible from the start. 

…And Degree Requirements

The same is true for degree requirements. Years of research prove that academic success and higher education do not correlate to job success and that degree requirements only serve to exclude certain demographics from the workforce. 

Only 20% of students from low-income families attend college, and college enrollments continue to drop, especially among low-income students of color. 

Thirty-seven percent of Americans ages 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, but 65% of job listings still require postsecondary education, and 61% of HR and business leaders say they throw out resumes without college degrees even if the candidate is qualified.

Employers have long believed that a college degree is necessary for higher-skill, higher-paying jobs, but that assumption ultimately disqualifies thousands of capable candidates–with valuable, diverse viewpoints—during a time when many employers are still struggling to fill roles.  

—–

For more ways to streamline the hiring process and additional tips for designing job descriptions that attract the best talent, watch or listen to this week’s episode of America Back to Work with recruiting expert Adam Gellert. 

As the founder and CEO of HiredHippo, Geller helps companies with fewer than 200 employees quickly find and hire the best talent on the market.

Gellet is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to reshape recruitment and change the candidate experience. Since 2002, he has been instrumental in building teams both at the corporate and recruitment agency levels. His latest venture, HiredHippo, is a hiring marketplace connecting top employers and candidates based on mutual interest, saying goodbye to traditional resumes.

In addition to HiredHippo, Adam founded the Linkus Group and co-founded The Help List and DisruptHR.