You’re ready to hire! Or maybe you have a library of job descriptions that you’ll pull when you’re ready. Either way, don’t post it until you’ve given your job description a quick makeover.
The truth is: you cannot manifest the perfect admin candidate for your job opening. We tend to write job descriptions with the best intentions to capture everything a candidate must possess or experience in order to be eligible for a position. We ruminate over task lists, debate titles, and become very precise in refining the qualifications. We ask for a specific number of years of experience and competence with our selected software. As hard as we try to imagine and describe the right person by writing a detailed job description, we cannot make them appear. Even the best recruiters cannot find the single perfect person for an opportunity, even when they come pretty-darned close. A job description is a wish list, and our wish list needs a makeover.
#1: Craft an Invitation
When you begin your job posting, focus first not on what they will do, but on how they will do their administrative duties. The job description is a standard list of tasks they will perform. However, a job invitation is a quick description at the beginning of the job posting that paints a picture of your company and expectations. You’re not inviting everyone; you’re inviting the right people who will fit into your company culture. Even if you haven’t given a lot of thought to your company culture, you can still draft an effective job invitation. Think of it as an invitation to an event. Are they expected to mingle casually and bring their own side dish like a backyard barbeque, or are they expected to arrive formally and stay in their assigned seats like a wedding? Both have their benefits and reflect the company culture.
Give the prospective team members a feel for the company. If they are expected to show up on time and knock out tasks, tell them. If you’re annoyed by people who come to you multiple times a day asking, “What’s next?” be clear in the invitation. It might sound something like this:
We hire self-starters who can manage their time and responsibilities with little oversight. To thrive at our company, you must have the confidence and competence to perform tasks independently.
On the flip side, if your company embraces collaboration and you’re looking for people who bring innovative ideas to the table, it might some something like this:
We hire go-getters who are always striving to improve and enjoy exchanging feedback. To thrive at our company, you must be able to work with others and embrace change.
Craft a short invitation that works for your team and the position you’re seeking. It may look slightly different for different positions but should have a common theme in the company culture.
#2: Broaden the Requirements
You probably have an idea of the statistics on women in administration and how women qualify themselves when applying for new jobs. If not, let me provide a quick recap:
· Most administrative positions are filled by women.
· Women apply for positions for which they meet 100% of the criteria.
According to these stats, we are missing a huge applicant pool if we craft our requirements too tightly. Unconscious biases, stringent requirements, and lengthy wish lists that try to capture everything, instead of the right things, will narrow your audience. The posting does not need to be all-encompassing. It needs to attract the right people with the most important requirements. You can use the interview process to dive into more detail about the tasks or requirements. We like to hold ourselves and our employees to high standards, but requiring a 4-year degree and 5 years of experience for an administrative position in a small company is not necessary.
#3: Include Your Core Values
Remember that poster that you made months or years ago, with a list of core values. Maybe it’s still hanging on the wall. Oh yeah, that one! Too often companies jump on the bandwagon to create core values but fail to follow through on them. If you have them, great! Begin including them in your job postings. They should be front and center, clear and unmistakable. First, companies with published core values attract more people. Second, it gives your potential employee expectations for behavior. The #1 complaint that I hear about admin is the drama. Supervisors do not want to deal with interpersonal drama around the office. It is easier to hold people accountable to core values when you use them in the hiring process and continue to reinforce them throughout the onboarding and review processes.
Whether you’ve formalized your core values or not, they always exist within a company. Just because you haven’t created the pretty poster or facilitated a strategy session to make them sparkle, doesn’t mean you should skip this step. You don’t have to call them “Company ABC’s Core Values” in the job posting. You can simply state “At Company ABC, we value people who are….” If you aren’t sure what to list, think of the qualities of your star employee or someone you interact with who always has their stuff together. Maybe it’s the friendly receptionist at your gym or your customer’s assistant who always has the answers. This list isn’t written in stone and if you find that they evolve over time, that’s ok. You have to start somewhere.
Hiring can be stressful, especially when the need is urgent and the task list is long. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to make your job posting all-inclusive. Instead, focus on hiring the right type of person to fit the culture, only the most important requirements and core values. Spending a few extra minutes on the front end to revise your job posting and hiring process will save you time, money, and stress on the back end.
