Job Descriptions vs. Job Ads: How to Attract Better Team Members
Job Descriptions vs. Job Ads: How to Attract Better Team Members
A job description explains the role to the company. A job advertisement speaks to the person you actually want to hire.
You may want to make sure you’re sitting down for this one.
Because what I’m about to tell you is probably completely counter to everything you’ve ever heard about how to find the right person for your team.
When trying to find your perfect next team member, you should never post or publish a job description.
You know the document I mean. The list of responsibilities and duties. The competencies the person needs. The pay range and benefits. Maybe a short paragraph about how the role fits into the company.
Yeah.
Don’t post that.
Why job descriptions attract the wrong applicants
The easiest way to explain why is with an analogy.
Let’s say you have a new product you want to launch. You put together a simple sales page that looks like this:
Introducing my brand-new coaching program!
I’m a coach with more than 10 years of experience, and I’d like to invite you to join my new coaching program.
In this program, you get:
An onboarding call
A workbook
Instructions for completing the workbook
Workshops and one-to-one calls
Office hours
Slack access
And much more
The cost is $5,000, which you can pay here.
What’s wrong with that sales page?
Other than everything?
It doesn’t tell me why I would want the program. It doesn’t tell me who it’s for, what problem it solves, or what result I can expect.
It doesn’t even tell me what kind of coaching it is. Life coaching? Business coaching? Wellness coaching? Career coaching? “How to not hate cats” coaching?
It’s a list of features.
You would never write a sales page like that now because you know it doesn’t work.
And yet, this is the equivalent of what you’re doing when you post a job description and hope it will attract the right person.
A job description is essentially a list of tasks and responsibilities. It may include pay, benefits, and a little context about the company, but at its core, it is what it says it is:
A description of the job.
The question is, how can you hope to attract the right person when the description is about the job and not about them?
What is the difference between a job description and a job advertisement?
A job description is an internal document. It explains how the role fits into the company and what the person will own.
A job advertisement is marketing copy.
Its primary job is to speak to the needs, wants, and desires of the person who would be a great fit for your team and business.
That distinction changes the entire hiring process.
When you start marketing to your ideal team members in the same way you market to ideal clients, you can attract someone who will not simply complete the tasks. You can attract someone who understands the opportunity, wants the work, and fits the way your company operates.
The job advertisement should answer questions such as:
Why would someone want this role?
What kind of person will thrive here?
What will they be able to contribute?
What problem will they help solve?
What will success look like?
Why should they choose this team instead of another one?
That is very different from copying a list of responsibilities into a job board.
How a better job advertisement changes the hiring process
A few weeks ago, one of our clients started advertising for an Account Manager position.
This was not the first time she had hired for the role.
A few months earlier, she had written a job description, posted it everywhere she could think of, and received a large number of applicants.
Then she spent hours filtering through them, trying to decide who was worth interviewing. After that came hours of first-round interviews, test projects, and second-round interviews.
She eventually found someone she was excited about.
A few months later, she had to fire them.
The person had the skills, but they were not the right person for the job, the team, or the culture.
So she had to start again.
This time, we worked together to turn the job description into a proper job advertisement.
She posted it in only a few places: a couple of social media posts, an email to well-connected friends, and a few similar channels.
Far fewer people applied.
But the people who did apply were much more qualified.
She immediately identified three people she wanted to interview. Instead of spending hours on first-round interviews, she expected to spend around 45 minutes in total.
Just like good marketing copy filters out people who would not be good clients, good job advertisements filter out people who would not be good team members.
Forty-five minutes instead of hours and hours?
Yes, please.
What should a strong job advertisement include?
The hiring process was still underway, so we could not yet know how the story would end.
But the client already felt like she was winning. The applicants were strong, and she was spending much less time on the process.
That is the first advantage of a job advertisement. It helps the right people recognize themselves in the opportunity before they apply.
Here is what our own process looked like for a recent hire:
We started with the job description.
We turned it into a job advertisement.
We posted it in a few places.
We received five highly qualified applications.
We selected three people for 15-minute screening interviews.
We gave them a test project.
We conducted a final interview with one person.
We made an offer.
We hired them.
The total time invested was a few hours writing the post, 30 minutes reviewing the test projects, and 90 minutes of interviews.
And we found our rockstar.
She was blowing our minds every day, and she had only been with us for a week.
Why does job-advertisement copy work better?
Just like strong marketing copy can make sales easier, strong job-advertisement copy can make hiring easier.
When you post a job description, you set yourself up to receive a large number of applications from unqualified people. That means you have to spend more time screening and interviewing to find the right person, if they even notice your post in the first place.
There is another problem. A job description looks like every other job posting.
It gets ignored.
When you post a job advertisement, you write copy that speaks to the exact person who could be a fit for your team, business, and culture.
The post stands out. It gets their attention.
The right people respond because you have called them in, while turning off the people who are not a fit.
So the choice looks something like this:
**Job description:** 20-plus hours to find mostly the wrong people.
**Job advertisement:** 3–4 hours to find people who are much more likely to fit.
I know which one I would rather do.
Of course, finding great candidates is only the first step. You still need a hiring process that helps you assess how they think, communicate, and work.
But the first step is making sure the people entering that process are worth your time.
And that begins with the way you present the role.
A great job advertisement is based on a great job description. And a great job description depends on being clear about what each team member owns.
Not just what they do.
What results they are responsible for.
If you are having trouble finding people who take charge in your business without needing constant direction, the problem may not be the applicant pool.
You may not yet have enough clarity about the role itself.
Before you look for the right person, define the right ownership.
Then write the job advertisement that lets that person recognize the opportunity.