The road to successful hiring begins with a clear, concise, and accurate job description. Relying on "feel" and not having clarity on what you want the person in a certain role to accomplish more often than not leads to turnover.
While being able to articulate that vision isn't the easiest task, there are some steps you can take to help you with the process.
Step 1: Put yourself in the role and create your own elevator pitch.
For those not well versed on an elevator pitch, it's a quick 30-second speech that tells the listener exactly what a role entails.
By creating an elevator pitch for a certain position, you clearly see the role for yourself and begin to paint a mental picture of the person sitting at that desk. It will allow you to focus on the meat of the job.
For example, “As a corporate recruiter for XYZ industries, I source candidates from a variety of platforms and network throughout our widget industry to onboard the best talent available to help our company grow. I interview, perform background checks, make presentations to our hiring managers, and help guide both candidates and managers through the hiring process."
When you set out to hunt deer, it is helpful to know what a deer looks like, or else you might come home with a squirrel!
Step 2: Define the skills that are needed to fulfill that description.
Defining each item on your elevator pitch will help give you a clearer picture of what you are looking for. Make a list of those items. For example, your list based on the above example might look like this:
• Knowledge of recruiting platforms
- Job boards
- Boolean searching
- Applicant tracking system experience - ICIIMS or similar
• Possess a knowledge of the widget industry and have existing contacts in the industry
• Experience interviewing using behavior-based interviewing techniques
• Ability to perform background checks and document those in a concise manner
This will help you quantify what you are looking for. You may have a mental picture of the perfect advertising manager, but it's unlikely that Don Draper will be the one walking through your door. However, understanding why you pictured Don Draper and what skills he exemplifies will help you discover what you really need.
Step 3: Add key metrics so both you and the candidate know how "score" is kept.
By adding visible metrics, you take most of the guesswork out of the equation for both you and the job seeker. When you set up measurable goals it becomes much easier to judge the successes of each candidate.
What are the actionable tasks you're looking for the potential employee to accomplish and what measuring stick will you use? Some examples might be:
• Responsible for filling requisitions at an average time to hire of 30 days or less
• Show a reduction in new hire turnover by 10% over the course of Year 1
• Reduce reliance on third-party agencies by 50%
• Increase social media exposure by posting positions and sharing positive hiring stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media resources
Ask yourself, “A year from now, how will I know that I made the right hire?” You'll know because the markers and goals you set up at the beginning of the hiring process were met. So take a moment to evaluate and project what the one-year review would look like for a successful person, then add that to your description.
Step 4: Resist the urge to add fluff.
If a skill does not help define your elevator pitch or isn’t part of how success is measured in this role, you don’t need it in your job description. It's easy to want to include everything but the kitchen sink in your job description, but do you really need all those bells and whistles? What are the chances that you find someone with all the skills you've rattled off? And if you do, do you really think that person’s salary requirement will be what you expected? Do you think this 1% candidate will be happy staying in a role they are (by definition) overqualified for? Think long-term and strategically.
Now you have a job description that speaks directly to the role at hand. Applicants can clearly envision what a day in the life would look like for them and you can clearly see what it is you are looking for.
When you interview, have the job description and your elevator pitch in hand. As you interview, you can see if the person you are talking to fits the template. Once you find that person, you'll have a big win. Good luck and happy hunting!
