How to read a job description
No, it isn't a job advert
At times, writing these articles, I fear the content is quite repetitive.
I’m sure it seems that way, with much overlapping content in nuanced areas.
Especially when employers may not recognise that two separate, overlapping, topics aren’t actually the same thing.
But, if you’re here, it’s because you are somewhere in what may be a difficult job search.
The devil is in the details.
While job adverts may try to convince you otherwise, a job advert is not a job description.
A job advert is a top funnel message whose aim should be to start a conversation with qualified candidates. This may be an application, a response, or even just prompting a query.
A job description is a formal document that describes the role and, to varying levels, the context.
Using a job description as a job advert creates no end of issues, because their purposes are different.
If an advert is what makes you enquire about a product, the job description is its technical specification.
It’s a necessary document, with a different purpose.
What is a job description?
(My usual caveat holds that this is predominantly for a UK audience.)
Unsurprisingly, it provides detail on the job you are applying for; however it’s more than that.
It’s a formal document that is used for training and development, capability and performance management. It can have legal ramifications, although, ironically, it isn’t a legal requirement to provide a detailed job description.
Your performance in the role is often compared against the job description.
Job descriptions are either tethered to an employment contract you sign or require their own signature confirming acceptance of the duties.
It’s a risk mitigation document. Most employers will recognise that change is a certainty, and so job descriptions will have wiggle room to allow for appropriate changes.
Indeed a ‘material change’ in a job description has legal implications, with a broad rule of thumb that roles can change 20-30% without much worry.
To get around this, job descriptions are sometimes necessarily vague, or include lines like:
ad hoc responsibilities as required
responsible for your own health and safety
Sometimes this vagueness can also come from uncertainty, if a company knows they need a <job title> but not necessarily how that role will work in their context.
It may not surprise you that a common reason for people leaving a role in a probationary period is that the job was not what they expected.
This isn’t necessarily because an employer is cynical - it does show flaws in their hiring and employment.
Before we go into the rest of the article, my first piece of advice is this:
When at interview, your goal should be to fully understand the role you may be undertaking, above and beyond what’s written on paper.
This isn’t always possible, but it is valuable insight to gain.
How many types of job descriptions are there?
While employment status and terms and conditions are broad ranging, I propose there are in general only two types of job description.
Role specific job description
Job family job description
They broadly look the same, though the first has lines on the specific duties you’ll undertake, and unique requirements to be considered.
While a job family document covers broad responsibilities and requirements within the overarching function of a role. It may miss off key points that are unique to the specific role, which are not related to the wider ‘family’.
The nature of job family job descriptions is that they don’t get updated as readily, because it affects every role.
Sometimes one can be confused for another - I’ve seen many newly created vacancies, sometimes even for key hires, where the job description is copied from another ‘family’ vacancy.
For example, if an employer needed a Project Manager, it might be easier to copy existing content (or even ask ChatGPT), than ask what the specific projects to be managed are, the strategy and methodology for success, the jobs to be done and problems to be solved.
What even does a good Project Manager looks like?
I wouldn’t be surprised if it looked like 5 years+ experience and Agile, because that’s what others ask for.
Replace Project Manager with your job title.
The nature of this approach is that it doesn’t relate specifically to the role or context.
In 2012 I worked on a project with my Dad.
It was a vacancy that had been open for a year with dozens of agencies, hundreds of applications, few interviews and no job offer.
We agreed to work on it as sole supplier, taking a headhunting approach. We required access to the hiring manager - something none of the other agencies had done (it was policy that recruitment was managed through the HR department).
We filled the role in six weeks - the time from instruction to offer. They wanted to hire a second from that shortlist but couldn’t get the budget.
It was a straightforward exercise, and I pinpointed why we’d been successful: the hiring manager conversation highlighted key points that weren’t on the job family job description. The job description was the only thing the other agencies had access to.
Can you believe that? All that time wasted for those agencies, and all those candidates, and for the business. Solved by a simple conversation.
Which brings me back to the point about job descriptions. Don’t rely on them for your decision. Gain insight through conversation.
And if you’re going through an agency, their insight is an indication of their skin in the game.
If you can’t gain insight, treat it as transactionally as they treat you.
If you can gain insight, use that to inform your decisions and how you invest yourself in the application process.
What’s in a job description?
These are the typical sections of a job description:
Job Title
Hiring department and hiring manager
Date signed off
Purpose / Scope / Dimension
Duties & Responsibilities
Person specification (sometimes a separate document)
Employment benefits
Company information
Values and culture overview
Document control (hidden away in the footer, and sometimes a sign its been copied)
Signature
The most important piece to digest first is their essential requirements underneath the person specification.
If these are true, then you can determine your suitability.
If you aren’t suitable, it doesn’t matter whether you want the job, because you won’t be selected.
If you aren’t sure, ask questions. If you still aren’t sure, then establish how much you want the job.
You get my drift. Clarity breeds certainty.
If you can’t gain clarity, then reduce your level of investment in it appropriately.
The third thing to look for is context.
How does this role fit within an organisation? What are its challenges? Are they growth mode, efficiency mode, or maintenance mode?
How big is the team? What resources do they have?
What’s the state of the industry?
Context is the answer to every question you should be asking.
It’s a shame context is missing from most job descriptions.
How else can you find it? LinkedIn, other social media, youtube, company reports, endole, glassdoor trends, industry insights. These can all provide deeper context.
Context is the third dimension that’s missing from two-dimensional job descriptions.
And it’s through establishing this that you can establish whether your transferrable skills can apply in their context.
If, for example, you are a skilled Project Manager who has only worked in a structured public sector environment, as part of a large team…
Then it’s unlikely you’ll be a context fit for a newly created vacancy that needs a fit for purpose strategy to be designed and delivered, as part of the project management process.
While the job descriptions might appear the same, the roles are fundamentally different.
Context defines culture, not values or a dry description.
While it’s worth checking that what’s written meets your expectations, don’t take this as a contract.
Another reason many people choose to leave a role during their probationary period is that the values and culture experienced are not what they expected.
Therein lies the problem with most job descriptions - they can be misrepresentative, unsuitable or insufficient, out of date, lacking key insights to determine suitability.
Sometimes, this is with good reason, when vagueness allows flexibility, or if people can mold into what’s needed.
I realise the bitter irony for those out of work that most skills (above a threshold) are learnable and success is arbitrary.
A problem that magnifies if you rely on generic job descriptions to generate your adverts.
It’s where the systemisation of recruitment holds us back from focusing on candidate needs:
job family job description signed off
uploaded to Applicant Track System
ATS generates advert and automatically lists to job boards
May also generate a social media post from the hiring manager (I’m excited to share… style posts no one except a candidate reading them may be aware of)
By systemising, it reduces human interaction - a great time saver for the hiring process, who may have other priorities.
But, again a sign of prioritising on information transactions, which you might treat reciprocally.
Conversely, if a job description is carefully and specifically articulated and shows its representativeness, it’s more likely the same care will be taken in assessing ‘what good looks like’.
The ones that speak to you personally are the ones you have the best shot at.
If you’ve made it this far, here’s an exercise for you. Read back through this article from the employer’s perspective. Replace job description with CV.
How much context does your CV show? What questions might a reader have about your CV that it hasn’t answered?
If context makes job descriptions more credible to you, how might the same help your CV?
How we digest information is the same, irrespective of who we are, and this is another example of how a job search for a role is the inverse of its recruitment.
That’s it for this week. I’ll be reflecting on job descriptions this week, in case greater detail will help.
If you have any questions or if there is anything you’d like me to cover, do hit reply or email greg.wyatt@bwrecruitment.co.uk.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Greg