How to write a good job description

While times might be a struggle to secure the best talent for a role right now, make sure suitable candidates see your job posting simply by using some of these highlights from our modern job description template.

With some minor tweaks and updated content to promote the role, you'll be scratching your head, wondering why you hadn't made these changes before.

By providing crucial information, you'll see the best candidates apply, which won't only save you time, you'll be keen to check out our other course templates you can use to continue the recruitment process.

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Want to go straight to our modern job description template? We don't blame you. Cut to the chase and sign up for our 7-day free trial and test out our awesome job description template you'll want to use to transform the recruitment process.

With over 20 Course Templates to choose from, you might like to check out our Recruitment Template and our Onboarding Checklist Template too.

Test out our online training platform, drop our US-based team a message in the live chat, and we'll answer any questions you might have.

Figure Out Why You're Hiring

As a starting point, you'll need to figure out exactly why you're hiring in the first place. If you're working for a start-up, resources are probably sparse right now, and you'll most likely need to hire 20 people. But, once you work out the priority roles and job title, make a clear hiring plan, so you know exactly what the position looks like, especially if that job title doesn't exist currently.

What you'll find in our modern job description template

Here's a taster of what to expect when you use our modern job description template to help attract hundreds of candidates with success! You'll want to be concise and have a well-written job advertisement. Ask other members of your team to check over it before posting because no one wants to read a poorly written job description format.

You'll highlight what kind of people you employ, why the candidate should apply, and what makes the company unique. Of course, there are many more gaps to fill in, but these are some of the basic questions you should answer when writing job descriptions many companies actually miss out on. Give your job description personality and let the work culture run through in your copy.

Summarise the company

Unfortunately, not everyone in the world might know who your company is, especially if you're a start-up. Start by summarising who the company is, which can be easily done by including your pitch within two or three sentences at the most. Be clear and concise so the potential candidates will know straight away if the business is right for them.

Job location

We recommend being very clear about where the job location. With many businesses going online, you'll need to state if the job will be based in an office or remote. This will help determine the logistics for the ideal candidate, so you're not wasting anyone's time.

Top three highlights for working at the company

Write the top three highlights for working at the company in bullet point form as an extenuation of the job summary at the top of the job description. This is your opportunity to sell your company to make sure the potential candidates decide to continue reading on.

Here's an idea of what you could include:

1. What has the company achieved so far to date? A stat is usually a good idea to include
2. What is the culture like? ie, what kind of people do you hire?
3. Name a fantastic perk you know will attract the ideal candidates

Why You'll love this role

In this section, you'll want to talk about the role and how important it is for the company. When writing this section, please don't hold back about how fantastic the company is, what mission it's on and what the role will contribute towards.

It's essential to be precise because you want to ensure the candidate knows what impact they can offer the company before their first day. Think about how the role fits in with the rest of the business and whom they will be reporting to. What does the rest of their direct team look like? If it's a newly created role without a team yet, what other stakeholders will they be working alongside?

List of requirements and skills required

In the list of requirements and skills required, you'll want to list the must-haves for the role. Be mindful not to go on and on by listing a hundred requirements. Only list the most important requirements which are necessary for the role.

Here's an example we pulled from a job description for a Content Marketing role (we love the last point!):

• 5-6 years of relevant content marketing experience
• A proven track record of converting clients or customers via blog content/organic SEO
• A demonstrated ability to create content that ranks on the first page of Google
• You view content as both a conversion tool, and a product in its own right. It needs to generate ROI for the company whilst also meeting the standards of professional journalism.
• Strong understanding of content marketing tactics, including digital advertising, social media marketing, and use of content analytics
• Working knowledge of SEO best practices and the toolkit of Google requirements
• Experience in managing a team of writers (onshore & offshore)
• Excellent written communication skills. A lot of JDs include this, but we REALLY mean it. To succeed in this role, you will be a wordsmith and storyteller of the highest caliber

The negotiables

It's always wise to list a section of skills you're willing to negotiate on. As a start-up, you'll probably be looking for ideal candidates who have a range of skills you can utilize that would be a bonus but not technically necessary. For example, you might be looking for a Paid Media Specialist who also has graphic design skills or has experience as a copywriter or content writer. This will help leverage a growing marketing team within the business.

Role responsibilities

Give the candidate a clear indication on what they'll be working on and whom they'll be working with. Here's an example of a leadership team position.

As an active member of the leadership team, you will:

• Bring brand and customer insights and data to strategy discussions
• Influence corporate messaging and positioning
• Support the company's efforts to lead in several market categories
• Participate in quarterly and annual strategic planning cycles
• Build productive relationships inside Marketing, and outside with Comms, Product, Legal, HR etc.
• Support key vendor relationships (e.g., creative, media and research agencies)
• Invest in essential team routines that produce a healthy and inclusive culture, including performance management, professional development, All Hands, QBRs, celebrations, team bonding

What do the first 6-12 months of performance outcomes look like?

We don't understand why more companies don't list some of the objectives the potential candidates will face within the first 6-12 months of joining the company. While there are plenty of job responsibilities that come with the role, it's a good idea to give them an outline of what to expect when they start. Obviously, you can keep it loosely based as you want to make sure you don't put in targets you'll need to change or too high or too low for the role.

Perks of the role

With many companies competing to find top talent in the current climate, you'll need to pull out all the stops with company perks. Long gone are the days of offering a fruit bowl on a Monday morning. With many companies working remotely, you'll need to come up with some epic perks.

For example, at Coassemble, we offer our team four weeks paid leave and an extra two weeks paid leave for 'me time'. The team also receives a monthly allowance to contribute towards food and exercise. You want to make sure that you focus on letting candidates know they will be valued before you even interview them.

And whatever you do, don't offer unlimited leave. It turns out many employees find this as a reverse outcome and take less leave than if they were given a set amount of time off, which results in staff quitting after burn out.

Manager quote

We stumbled across a job description by a dog-sitting start-up, Mad Paws that they had a quote from the hiring manager. This is a great idea to introduce the manager by giving the candidate an insight into their personality. It's crucial to understand that the manager and employee will get on well. Creating this winning job description idea will cut down so much time.

Here's what that quote looked like:

About your manager:

"Hey, I am Karim, the Head of Marketing at Mad Paws. I am a Big Pet Lover and own two labradors. I am passionate about biking, which triggered a fun Vintage-style streetwear venture with my friends. I love playing golf and spending time with my family in my free time. Outside of Australia, I have worked in Berlin early in my career for FoodPanda where overnight I was managing 10 people and spending money in 55 countries which was a very rewarding experience, to say the least!"

We love this quote because the manager lets you know that he has a love for dogs (the same as the brand); he's giving you an insight into a side hustle and his passions, as well as an insight into his previous career.

What makes the company special

In this section, you'll want to make sure you talk about what makes the company unique when it comes to the company culture. Do you actively support diversity and inclusion in the workplace?

While you might be able to find plenty of candidates who tick all of the job requirements, you'll need to find someone with the personal characteristics that will settle in quickly and will be easy to retain. As there are expectations in the workplace, finding a candidate who will bring success to the team will boost morale and help you quickly grow the business.

Be clear and honest about your type of company and show authenticity to the kind of hires you're looking for. The candidate will have much more respect and will likely apply if they see this in the job description.

Leadership of the company

And lastly, if you're a start-up, it's likely the candidate won't know the background of the business. We suggest mentioning who some of the leaders of the company are. You don't need to waffle on, simply put it in bullet points and say the names, their position, and where they used to work (big brand names will work well).

This gives the candidate substance of the types of professionals they will be working with and from whom they can learn.

Use our modern job description template to get started

Now we've given you our secrets in what an interview looks like at Coassemble; we're here to help you get organized and streamline your processes in the best way possible. If you're the hiring manager or a member of the HR team, you'll likely be hiring more than this one time due to being a start-up. The best thing you can do is use our Job Description template and drop your hiring process into it so you can adjust it as and when you need to for each role.

Jump into our 7 Day Free Trial, so you can access the template straight away! This will give you a fantastic starting point so you can add or delete any of the content we've included.

Coassemble is built by instructional designers who are changing the way employees learn. With fun lesson screens to customize, you'll be able to turn your content into a fun and interactive course that anyone will find engaging! Chat to our US-based team on our Live Chat and ask as many questions as you like so we can help you build out your Job Description template you can give to the hiring managers in your company to customize as and when needed.

You can add screens, move screens and customize your content to build your job description template you'll be proud of. Or, if you prefer, start a new course from scratch and add the screens as you go.

30+ lesson screens to choose from

With 30+ lesson screens to choose from, you'll be able to bring your content to life by using them to create an interactive presentation. For example, our popular wheel lesson screen helps you distribute your content into bite-sized interactive pieces. You also might like to use our timeline screen to add to your job description template.

Add in a quiz (find out more about our quiz screen here) to break the content up, and make learning fun so that your hiring managers attract the best talent.

There are plenty of ways to bring your content to life; you'll love using our lesson screens to help you see how easy it is to make it happen.

We're more than a job description template

Coassemble offers much more than training templates to help make your life easier!

Our US-based training experts will help you build a training experience that will instantly make sense to everyone who needs to be involved in it. Drop our team a message in our Live Chat feature on this site, and they'll be able to answer any questions you might have about getting started with your training.

• You'll discover how to build a genuinely awesome training course that will knock the socks off your team and other stakeholders.
• You'll learn how to send your training program pro-actively so it doesn't get lost in a sea of spam.
• You'll also gain access to understanding how your team engaged with your training through our excellent analytics tool.
• You can ask for feedback from your team about how they found your training so you can continually improve and update it when needed.

Try Coassemble for FREE today!

Try out 7-day free trial here so you can see if Coassemble is what you've been looking for (we know it is!).

Test out our awesome lesson screens and have fun discovering how much you can get out of using our system to keep your training together.

Send our team a message on Live Chat so we can answer any questions you might have about getting started, and you'll realize that within 7 days, we'll turn you into the workplace hero who will be hiring superstars in the making!