When looking for your next great hire, the first step is to post a job description for the vacancy. Writing a job description may sound relatively simple, you just list the position you´re hiring for and what type of employee you´re looking for right? Intro to the company, tasks, required skills & competencies, and how to apply. Well, if you´re really looking to find your next star employee, there might be more to it than you initially think. Especially when hiring scarce talent, you need to make sure your job description stands out and speaks to that talent in order to attract them to your company. You will really have to woo potential candidates with your job description to make them want to apply for this specific position at your specific company. Therefore, it´s important to make writing the perfect job description into an art in your organization.
So, what are the key components of writing a great job description to attract the right person for your company?
- Be concise and to the point but clear
Nobody wants to go through a very long job description to see if this is something for them. Think of it this way, if you´re receiving a lot of candidates for a vacancy you probably do a first quick screening where you already discard candidates. Here you don´t read all the details of a very long cover letter. It works almost the same if you want to attract top talent with scarce skills! They are reviewing several positions and want to see a concise and to the point job description to decide whether this job could be a good fit or not. 
- Make it eye-catching & visually attractive
Make your job description stand out from the rest by making it visually attractive and by making sure that the intro is eye-catching for the type of candidate you want to attract. Just a textual description is probably not going to cut it. Try to include graphics or targeted questions that really jump out to make it more visually attractive. However, be aware to not just include them for the sake of including them, do make sure they add value to the job description.
- Focus only on a few “required” skills
A lot of job description focus on a lot of required and desired skills and experience that the candidate must have. However, you might miss out on some very good candidates that might not 100% comply with all the skills and experience you were actually looking for but that have different things to add that actually make them a perfect fit.
- Make the candidates get a feel for the job & your company
When you want to attract top talent, you will need to sell the job to them as well. And the job should stand out from the other jobs out there! Therefore, don´t use standard descriptions, use your company´s language and try to show your company´s personality in the description. Make the candidate get a feel for the job and why they would be a perfect fit for it. Also, don´t focus the entire job description on what you need the candidate to be able to contribute but also think about what this specific job can bring the candidate.
- Keep it simple
As mentioned above, the job description should be concise and to the point but the application process should also be simple and straightforward. It should be clear immediately from the job description how one can apply for this job and this process should not be too complicated because that will scare good candidates off.
How do you ensure you create the perfect job description?
