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How To Develop A Job Description
Growing up in a faith community, we would head out for loads of different community service opportunities picking up trash at a community park, repainting old homes, sorting through spoiled food at a local food bank; or the time in Denver when we were serving in a food line while a group of men smoked pot on one side of us while a knife fight broke out on the other side.
Serving people who will never be able to pay you back is rewarding, but what can put a damper on community service is a lack of preparation and planning. Showing up to a service project with a “whatever you bring will be helpful” message is far more confusing than a message of “here is exactly what we would like for you to do”.
When there is ambiguity, the result feels like you are muddying the already murky waters of chaos without clear direction on what the mission and the task is.
Owners are notorious for simply “needing help” and then finding people with a mind and a pulse and “throwing them to the wolves” so they can “figure it out as they go”. We tend to perpetuate the “whatever you bring will be helpful” myth.
It’s a less-than-ideal way of empowering others to help drive the mission of the business, and yet it is done every single day.
There is a better way, a way that is more human, kind, and visionary.
People react to chaos, but they respond to vision and clarity.
A simple, honest, written job description is a powerful and necessary step in building clarity and vision that a new team member will require and is in search of.
Here are four ways to develop a helpful job description.
First, on a sheet of paper or document, do a total brain dump of everything you wish this person could do.
A healthy job description is just that, a description about the job. What are all of the tasks and responsibilities that this role will own?
What are all of the little elements you would want this role to do? In a stream of consciousness write everything down that comes to your mind. Even if it doesn’t make sense, write it down, just get it out of your head into a place you can actually see it.
How specific should you be? The more specific the tasks you write out, the more clarity you will bring?
For instance, you may write down “accounting”. Be more specific like “payables, receivables, receipts, bank reconciliations, payroll, timesheets”.
Second, categorize tasks into three or four (or more) groups. For instance, if you are hiring a project manager for construction, you may want to categorize your job description this way…
Underneath each section is where you will add many of the tasks that you wrote out in the first step.
The third step in developing a job description is to add your mission statement, your core values, and also to add any additional narrative you would like for a new recruit to know.
We actually have started to add an open letter to the new potential team member providing a narrative overview of what we are looking for and also insight into our culture.
Here is a snippet…
“We believe that business owners can have a great business AND a great life. The best way to have them make time for what matters most is to liberate them from the chaos that distracts them.
And that is where you come in!
We are looking for a Marketing Strategy & Campaign Manager to come in and set up the systems that will invite 100 new people per week into the BOP Train Station so they can engage and make the decision to be liberated from chaos or not.
We have good systems, good processes, and a great product. But we need someone to come in and obsess over drawing crowds of people in so they have an opportunity to know that help is available to them.”
This is a massive contrast to the corporate job description that sounds more like a legal brief than it does a human document. Allow your job description to show your humanity.
The final step in developing a job description after you have the categories, the tasks, and the human element of the job description, it’s time to test and title the document.
Read back through what you have written so you can test it. Do you feel like it brings a helpful level of detail and explanation for the role?
Send it to a friend or peer who has some insight into your business and allow them to read through it to see what questions or thoughts they may have.
Once proofed and tested, only then do you put a job title on the job description. That’s right, wait till the very end. Why?
We put generic, placeholder titles on most roles (Accounting Manager, Sales Associate, etc.). Once you have read back over the role, what would you title the role regardless of what the industry suggests you title it?
What job title actually describes the role you see? Use that job title. A unique job title will help grab the attention of people and jolt them out of the cliche of hearing some generic title.
Once tested and titled, it’s time to market your new role. When you ask for recommendations from others make sure to not say, “we’re looking for a JOB TITLE.” Instead, “we are looking for a person who can (INSERT A FEW OF THE SPECIFIC TASKS FROM THE JOB DESCRIPTION), the role is (JOB TITLE)”.
This forces engagement from the person you are speaking to. Otherwise, you are setting yourself for a good old-fashioned, and non-helpful response, “yeah, I’ll keep my eye out!”
Do a brain dump, categorize all of the tasks, add your culture to the job description, and finally, test and title.
This will give you a powerful job description that will grab their attention.
5
4242 ratings
How To Develop A Job Description
Growing up in a faith community, we would head out for loads of different community service opportunities picking up trash at a community park, repainting old homes, sorting through spoiled food at a local food bank; or the time in Denver when we were serving in a food line while a group of men smoked pot on one side of us while a knife fight broke out on the other side.
Serving people who will never be able to pay you back is rewarding, but what can put a damper on community service is a lack of preparation and planning. Showing up to a service project with a “whatever you bring will be helpful” message is far more confusing than a message of “here is exactly what we would like for you to do”.
When there is ambiguity, the result feels like you are muddying the already murky waters of chaos without clear direction on what the mission and the task is.
Owners are notorious for simply “needing help” and then finding people with a mind and a pulse and “throwing them to the wolves” so they can “figure it out as they go”. We tend to perpetuate the “whatever you bring will be helpful” myth.
It’s a less-than-ideal way of empowering others to help drive the mission of the business, and yet it is done every single day.
There is a better way, a way that is more human, kind, and visionary.
People react to chaos, but they respond to vision and clarity.
A simple, honest, written job description is a powerful and necessary step in building clarity and vision that a new team member will require and is in search of.
Here are four ways to develop a helpful job description.
First, on a sheet of paper or document, do a total brain dump of everything you wish this person could do.
A healthy job description is just that, a description about the job. What are all of the tasks and responsibilities that this role will own?
What are all of the little elements you would want this role to do? In a stream of consciousness write everything down that comes to your mind. Even if it doesn’t make sense, write it down, just get it out of your head into a place you can actually see it.
How specific should you be? The more specific the tasks you write out, the more clarity you will bring?
For instance, you may write down “accounting”. Be more specific like “payables, receivables, receipts, bank reconciliations, payroll, timesheets”.
Second, categorize tasks into three or four (or more) groups. For instance, if you are hiring a project manager for construction, you may want to categorize your job description this way…
Underneath each section is where you will add many of the tasks that you wrote out in the first step.
The third step in developing a job description is to add your mission statement, your core values, and also to add any additional narrative you would like for a new recruit to know.
We actually have started to add an open letter to the new potential team member providing a narrative overview of what we are looking for and also insight into our culture.
Here is a snippet…
“We believe that business owners can have a great business AND a great life. The best way to have them make time for what matters most is to liberate them from the chaos that distracts them.
And that is where you come in!
We are looking for a Marketing Strategy & Campaign Manager to come in and set up the systems that will invite 100 new people per week into the BOP Train Station so they can engage and make the decision to be liberated from chaos or not.
We have good systems, good processes, and a great product. But we need someone to come in and obsess over drawing crowds of people in so they have an opportunity to know that help is available to them.”
This is a massive contrast to the corporate job description that sounds more like a legal brief than it does a human document. Allow your job description to show your humanity.
The final step in developing a job description after you have the categories, the tasks, and the human element of the job description, it’s time to test and title the document.
Read back through what you have written so you can test it. Do you feel like it brings a helpful level of detail and explanation for the role?
Send it to a friend or peer who has some insight into your business and allow them to read through it to see what questions or thoughts they may have.
Once proofed and tested, only then do you put a job title on the job description. That’s right, wait till the very end. Why?
We put generic, placeholder titles on most roles (Accounting Manager, Sales Associate, etc.). Once you have read back over the role, what would you title the role regardless of what the industry suggests you title it?
What job title actually describes the role you see? Use that job title. A unique job title will help grab the attention of people and jolt them out of the cliche of hearing some generic title.
Once tested and titled, it’s time to market your new role. When you ask for recommendations from others make sure to not say, “we’re looking for a JOB TITLE.” Instead, “we are looking for a person who can (INSERT A FEW OF THE SPECIFIC TASKS FROM THE JOB DESCRIPTION), the role is (JOB TITLE)”.
This forces engagement from the person you are speaking to. Otherwise, you are setting yourself for a good old-fashioned, and non-helpful response, “yeah, I’ll keep my eye out!”
Do a brain dump, categorize all of the tasks, add your culture to the job description, and finally, test and title.
This will give you a powerful job description that will grab their attention.
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