A few years back I was working in ed-tech and found myself at a meeting with the CTO of a multi-billion dollar company. We were discussing how employers could have more success recruiting early-career talent. This exec made an off-hand observation that always stuck with me.
“The root issue with job descriptions is that hiring managers will write one when they should have written four.” — A CTO who knew what he was talking about
The document you write to excite the right candidate is very different than one that describes what you actually need. And both are different than what finance or HR need to give you approval.
But instead of writing four separate documents, most of us take a shortcut. So you get a bland, uninspiring description of the role. It’s not great. But I’m not sure it’s the end of the world. That said, the spirit of this exec’s point was still valid — and there is a point where the “kill many birds with one stone” approach goes too far.
Where The Shortcut Breaks
It goes too far when we lean on job descriptions not just to excite the right candidates, but also to deter the wrong ones.
If you’ve been a job seeker, you know exactly what I’m talking about. These are job descriptions that describe a long list of “must haves” or “requirements.” You’ll read these and wonder how anyone could qualify.
The Volume Problem Is Real
This tactic of scaring applicants away used to be more common at large companies. But now we’re seeing it everywhere. With the rise of remote work, smaller employers are getting more applications than they have the resources to review. It isn’t uncommon for us (or our clients) to see thousands of applicants within the first few days. On LinkedIn, remote roles now represent less than 15% of postings but receive over half the applications. The rise of AI will only make the application volume problem worse.
Why Deterrence Backfires
So it’s a real issue, and employers need a solution. But trying to get people to not apply might be the worst approach. Why? Because for every one of your hard requirements, there are exceptions. And in hiring, these exceptions can be the best decisions you’ll ever make.
A candidate may have 2 years less experience than you imagined was necessary. Or they might be unfamiliar with a specific tool your company uses. But maybe they graduated at the top of their class. Or they rose quickly at the top company in your industry. Maybe they were an Olympian. By projecting hard cut-offs, these edge-cases are exactly the ones you risk deterring. You know who you’re not deterring? The spray-and-pray candidates who aren’t reading your job description anyway.
The Job Description Has One Job
The good news is that GenAI is enabling a proliferation of solutions to the problem of application volume. At Rockstar we’ve built an end-to-end solution that includes cost-efficient profile review. There are also a host of DIY tools emerging, and top applicant tracking systems are starting to offer these features as well.
It’s such a noisy world. Just getting the attention of top talent is hard enough. Smaller employers can’t afford to take shortcuts. A job description that you’re posting should do one thing, and one thing only:
- It should inspire candidates and invite them to apply.