The internet was buzzing about a job posting for a nanny/household manager/best friend last week because it was so over the top. It was also 1475 words. That’s longer than many Atlantic articles. Most of what you read online is less than 1000 words.
In other words, this wasn’t a job posting; it was a fantasy novella about this hiring manager’s dream employee.
I wish I could say that she was the only one who writes fantasy in place of actual job descriptions, but long job descriptions are common.
You can find job descriptions listing 40 or more skills that a particular candidate needs to have. Do you know what that is? A fantasy novella.
You want the right person for the job, but the right person doesn’t mean the person that has every single one of the characteristics you can brainstorm. The right person is the person that can learn to do the job with a reasonable amount of training.
And no, you can’t find an external candidate that needs no training. It doesn’t exist. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk couldn’t just swap roles even though they both built huge companies. They would need to learn about internal processes and procedures and how to access their new email accounts. (And, Bezos probably needs to learn a bit about crazy moon-related ideas, and Musk needs to learn a bit about how to not be crazy about moon-related ideas, but I digress.)
Job postings aren’t supposed to cover every task a person may have to do at some point in the job. Instead, they are general overviews.
I know, I know, there are legal reasons for wanting to include everything, but you can put that on the formal job description. Your job posting is a marketing document.
Yes, you heard that right. At any given moment, there are millions of available jobs. You need to make your post stand out.
This doesn’t mean lying about what you want and need – but it does mean focusing on the essential things and not just listing everything that pops into your head.
Read the full article @ AIHR Digital
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