tired of overstuffed job descriptions? #techjobs #jobsearch

20 Dec 2024 · 1 min

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In this concise hiring tip, the speaker argues that job descriptions should be brief and purposeful. He recommends a three‑sentence format that includes a short mission statement, a clear outline of what the role will accomplish in the first 30, 60, and 90 days, and a clean separation of must‑have skills from nice‑to‑have ones. By eliminating long lists of technologies (e.g., multiple JavaScript frameworks) and focusing on essential requirements, his team consistently received the highest candidate response rates among a recruiting group of twelve. The speaker backs the recommendation with a practical experiment: after trimming a previously lengthy description to this streamlined format, the number and quality of applicant replies increased dramatically.

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Must-haves and nice-to-haves to job descriptions. Also, I think job descriptions should be short. We don't need ColdFusion next to jQuery next to React. Maybe, maybe give a little bit about what this role is going to do 30, 60, 90 days, right? Hey, when we have you come on, this is the problem we're having you solve. Here's where we want you to be in the next 60 days, 90 days. That would be pretty cool. 3 sentences. I'm not looking for a lot. Then the next thing is must-haves. Do they really need to have 6 JavaScript frameworks that can all be learned on the job? I consistently had the best candidate response responses across my recruiting team of 12 individuals time and time again. And so we did a deep dive on why. I made it really, really short. I cut out all the fluff. All I put is a little summary, like the mission, and then I put exactly what I just said— nice-to-haves, must-haves— and sent it out. The job description literally on the— it was like that long. And I got the best response.