Project blackout

What do job descriptions and a Bulchholz Protection Relay have in common?

In the last newsletter, we looked at defining what ‘good’ is in candidates to improve your recruitment.

This isn’t possible if that definition isn’t tethered to the anchor in your recruitment process – the job description.

Before we look at why… an analogy.

The Great London Blackout of 2003 affected 500,000 people for 34 minutes.

It was caused by a single part that was incorrectly rated (mentioned at the top of this letter).

One small part at the top of the process caused a catastrophic cascade failure, affecting more and more parts in the system until – kaboom (or rather the sound of not hearing your fridge running, which is far more ominous).

It’s a good thing Netflix wasn’t online back then – can you even imagine?

Let’s look at a similarly catastrophic cascade failure in a recruitment process (YMMV):

1/ a key employee resigns. Let’s replace them – it’s urgent!

2/ whip out the three-year-old job description that they agreed when they joined your business.

3/ it doesn’t matter that your context and expectations are different. Sure, some of it is outdated, and some now irrelevant, but 70% accurate is good enough, right? And you can always improve it later on in the process, especially with those key new duties that are still being confirmed.

4/ pass on the JD to your preferred agency. They behave well and don’t ask awkward questions, like “is this Job Description accurate?”

5/ unbeknownst to you their approach relies on advertising and they base this on your 70% accurate job description, with added “my favourite client” and “innovative market leader” for good measure.

6/ unbeknownst to them most of the applications come from people who are happy if they are a 70% fit.

7/ while the best candidates ignore cut-and-paste job descriptions, which the agency won’t be aware of

8/ so even for the good applications they are likely to be a (70% of 70%) 49% fit with what you actually need. If you are very lucky, they may even be a 100% fit! However, if the first person to read your applications isn’t aware of the missing 30%... how would they even know 100% if they read it?

None of this would happen with suitable error checking at each stage of the process – such as getting it right the first time or allowing trusted suppliers access to your hiring manager.

This is grossly simplified, yet disappointingly common.

How often have you filled a role, where the candidate wasn’t a direct fit with the JD – because it was aspirational, because you thought they could grow, or because of their other strengths.

How often have people left within months of joining because the job wasn’t what they expected?

More often than you may expect, it comes back to your documentation – the job description.

Job descriptions are the most boring thing in the world to write (YMMV), although I quite enjoy writing them with clients as I know it starts off our project on the right footing.

Because every vacancy is a project, and as any project manager worth their salt will tell you – documentation is key in confirming project context and expectations. It all flows from there.

Which is to say, no matter how urgent a vacancy is, or how time short you are - getting your job description right will give you access to better candidates, save you time and hassle, and reduce the risk of a bad hire.

No one wants a blackout from a careless error.

The next newsletter is a little different, looking at copywriting in recruitment. As at least two of my subscribers are copywriting experts – I’d better get it right.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services:

- recruitment of commercial, operational and technical leadership vacancies

- manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis (Cognate)

- recruitment coaching and mentoring

- recruitment strategy setting

- outplacement support

Just hit reply to check if my approach is right for you.