3
Write Out the
Job Description

It is surprising how many people advertise for or seek new job candidates without ever taking a few minutes to sit down and write out a clear description of the person they really want.

Something amazing happens between your head and your hand when you write a list of all the qualities that the ideal job candidate would have. You will be astonished at the incredible clarity that develops on the page in front of you. You will find yourself writing key descriptions and details that had not previously occurred to you. Later, you will find that these essential requirements were vital in making the right hiring decision.

Practice idealization for the purpose of this exercise. Imagine that you could write a description of the perfect person and hand it over to a special service, and the service would deliver that person to you, exactly to your specifications. Imagine that you were sending in an order for a person and that the exact person you requested would be delivered to your door. What would he or she be like?

What I do prior to starting a search for a new person is to make a list of everything I can possibly think of that the perfect person would be, have, and be able to do if I could find him or her. I then circulate this list to the other people in my company who will be working with whoever is chosen. We then review and massage this list. We discuss the characteristics and organize them by priority. In a few minutes, by working collaboratively, we create a comprehensive description of the ideal person we would like to find. We can then write out a detailed description of the job.

Write the job description by making a list of every task the individual will be doing from the time he or she starts in the morning until the time he or she finishes in the evening. What will the candidate be expected to do? Think of the job as a production process and identify each step in the process as a task that must be completed to a particular standard of performance. Identify the key result areas of the job and write them down.

List every function and responsibility that the individual will have to fulfill to do the job properly, from coming in in the morning, checking messages, and responding to telephone calls and e-mails, all the way through to measuring and reporting on his or her progress to his or her superior. Don’t leave anything out. A single omission can lead to hiring the wrong person.

We once hired an account executive who had a tremendous track record in sales and account development with another company. She was a star in her industry. We felt lucky to hire her. And yet, within two weeks of starting the job, she fell apart. She became increasingly distraught and angry and eventually quit. What went wrong?

Upon investigation, we found that her previous company had advertised heavily and generated a continuous supply of sales leads, which she simply followed up on. In the job with our company, however, she was responsible for generating her own leads, something she simply could not do because of her inordinate fear of rejection. We had not made that requirement clear enough because we just assumed (big mistake!) that she knew that prospecting was part of the job. As Alexander MacKenzie wrote, “Errant assumptions lie at the root of most failures.”

Once you have a description of the ideal candidate and a clear description of everything that the candidate will be expected to do, set priorities on both lists. Decide what is more important and what is less important to success in the position. Use a simple scoring method of one (low priority) to ten (high priority) for each item.

Divide the lists into “musts” and “wants.” Some personal qualities and output responsibilities will be absolutely essential to the successful performance of the job. Some are quite desirable but they are not absolutely essential. For example, in my ideal candidate descriptions, I always write down that the person lives fairly close to our offices. But this is a preference, not an essential requirement. This is a “want,” not a “must.” Some of my best people live an hour or more away from the office.

On the other hand, the skill or proven ability to achieve the most important result of the job goes to the top of the list. This is essential. This is a definite “must.” Without this ability, the candidate will fail, no matter how many other positive qualities he or she might have.

The clearer you are about your priorities for the job and the ideal person you are seeking, in advance, the more competently you can interview and the better hiring decision you will make.

Think about the people with whom the person will be working. This is as important as any other factor. Everyone has to fit into a team of some kind, and it is absolutely essential that whomever you hire gets along well with his or her coworkers and is accepted by them. A mistake in this area alone can be fatal to the selection process.

Determine what kind of attitude or personality you want the person to have. In my experience, a positive, optimistic, and open-minded attitude is best. As a rule, you should refuse to hire negative or unhappy people, no matter how good they might be technically. They almost always become the cause and source of most of your problems in the workplace.

Finally, consider all of this information and write out a clear, detailed description of the ideal candidate for the position. Write it out exactly as if you were going to be placing this description as an ad in a major publication and it was going to cost you several thousand dollars for a single insertion. Begin this description with your requirements in descending order of importance. Put your most important points in the first sentence.

With this written description, you are now ready to cast your net and begin finding the right person for the job.