How To Properly Use Job Description Templates To Attract and Hire Better Candidates, Faster

Hiring may not seem like too big of a deal if you’re looking for a  single writer or an additional editor to join your team. While it might be less costly and time-consuming than scaling your business to 30+ employees, finding a single person that’s a perfect fit for your organization, regardless of the role, is still far from easy. 

The first step is creating an in-depth job description that will get the attention of the right professionals in your industry.That said, you don’t need to waste time writing a job description from scratch. It’s much easier and faster to select one of the pre-configured job description templates and adjust them according to your specific business needs!

Even though a job description template is an excellent resource, keep in mind that you should never use one without first customizing it. Templates are vague and general by default, so you’ll need to fine-tune them to reflect the nature of the role in your company. You must go into details about every aspect of the job—including the necessary experience, knowledge, technical skills, and the responsibilities future employees are expected to perform. 

Your job ad ultimately determines the quality of candidates who apply. And top-performing professionals won’t apply on vague job ads that give them little information to go on.

In the next 10+ minutes, you’ll learn about every crucial aspect of a job description template, including:

• What a job description template is and why it’s important
• Why you should use a job description template as a starting point
• How you should leverage the template for maximum efficiency
• What parts have to be personalized and how you should adjust them

We’ll also show you how you can utilize Workello to set up a streamlined, automated hiring funnel and hire better candidates faster, all the while cutting hiring costs IN HALF!

What Is a Job Description Template and Why Is It So Important for Scaling Your Company?

A simple job description template can be used to write a job description for any role in your team. However, there are also job description templates for specific roles, which require less customization. 

Workello has a vast knowledge base of pre-made job description templates for:

• Writers & Editors
• Marketing
• Human Resources
• Sales
• PR & Communications
• Virtual Assistants

When customizing a job description template, keep in mind that a job ad is your first contact point with prospective candidates. It must provide them with an overview of what the job entails, and allow them to see whether they have the necessary skills and experience to thrive in the role.

Whether you’re recruiting for a senior or an entry-level position, job descriptions are there to answer the pivotal question—”What tasks does this role perform?” The more detailed your answer, the better your chances of attracting candidates who tick all the boxes.

This is why a good job ad can’t be ambiguous or confusing. If your job description is vague and uninformative, everyone will think they possess the required expertise for the job, and dozens of sub-par applications will pour into your hiring channels in an instant!

For this reason, you can’t simply copy-paste a job description template. If you want the job ad to attract the right type of candidates, you need to add role-specific details and tailor the job according to the requirements and responsibilities of the role in your organization. 

Which Parts of a Job Description Template Should You Template?

The practicality of a job description template lies in its simplicity—it contains all the essential components of your job ad. That said, not every part of the description can be templated—some have to be heavily customized in order to provide vital info on the role.

The following list shows you the parts of your job ad that need to be personalized according to the specifications of the role:

1. Role title
2. Job summary
3. Job responsibilities
4. Job requirements
5. Employee perks and benefits

All sections need to be adapted to suit the role, and Workello will show you the best methods for customizing a job description to perfection. 

Should You Change the Role Title?

The name of the role must always match the job—this much should go without saying. But, what many companies fail to realize is that the role title should also include the seniority of the position and, in some cases, the industry. For example, you might be looking for a B2B Content Writer or a Senior Java Developer, not just any writer or developer. 

Can You Use a Template for the Job Summary?

The job summary is made up of three constituent parts:

1. Introduction
2. Main body paragraph
3. Company vision and mission

Introduction

You may template the first part of the job summary to some degree, but you’ll still need to adjust individual segments that would otherwise be left blank. For example, an introduction in a template would look something like this:

[Company Name] is searching for an ambitious, top-performing [Role Title] to join our professional [department] team.

Apart from filling in the “blanks,” you can also expand on the sentence above by mentioning the business impact your new hire will have if they’re successful in the role. For example, if you’re hiring a content writer, you can add something along the lines of: “…to help us create engaging content that ranks and boost our organic traffic.”

Main Body Paragraph

The main body of your job summary should include many role-specific details that will both attract highly qualified candidates and dissuade those who lack the core competencies from applying. 

That’s why this segment needs to be filled out with specifications that will help attract your ideal candidate. It needs to highlight all the key responsibilities of the role and explain the purpose of particular tasks. Besides this, you should also mention which external and internal stakeholders they will be communicating with on a daily basis.

Here’s a sample from our Content Writer job ad:

Your primary responsibility will be to craft top-quality articles for both our B2C and B2B clients. This will require you to conduct independent research on various topics in order to meet the readers’ intent. You will ultimately help our clients reach their projected growth goals by creating engaging content that will appeal to target audiences and increase their organic site traffic.

Company Vision and Mission

You should customize the last paragraph of the job summary to emphasize your company’s culture, goals, and notable achievements. This section cannot be templated, as you have to highlight what particular aspects of your company make it a great workplace for professionals to spend their careers in.

Describe your company’s core values, work ethics, and atmosphere. Also, elaborate a bit on what impact you’ve made in the industry so far—and on the current direction your company is taking. This information will not only promote your company to skilled candidates, but also help you filter out those who don’t share your company’s vision.

How Do You Customize the Responsibilities Section?

An effective job description must include a clear-cut list of responsibilities and duties that a prospective candidate needs to be able to fulfill. 

You should list the responsibilities in order of importance. Think in terms of what tasks have the highest impact on your business—the most impactful functions are at the top, while miscellaneous duties should be listed at the bottom. 

Always remember that templates only cover the general responsibilities of a given role. These have to be modified to suit the actual responsibilities that potential employees will have to fulfill in your company.

For example—an IT job description template could be useful as a starting point in your search for a back-end developer. But you’ll still have to manually add all the specific responsibilities that differentiate this position from other IT roles.

You also need to consider the seniority of the position, as the job description should reflect the specific duties and tasks that come with it. In the table below, we’ll give you advice on customizing this section of the template according to the seniority of the role:

How Do You Tailor the Requirements to the Role You Want To Hire?

The requirements section needs to be extensively modified if you want to attract an experienced candidate with the right skill set. List out all the necessary qualifications, tool proficiencies, and hard & soft skills required to be successful in the role. And don’t worry about being too demanding—it’s better than being vague and ending up with hundreds of applicants who lack the core competencies for the role!

The table below will show you what elements the requirements section should contain and how to personalize them according to the specifications of the role:

Should You Personalize Your Salary and Employee Benefits?

It’s always a good idea to provide a salary range in your job ad instead of putting something ambiguous, such as “a competitive salary” or “the industry standard.”

In addition, you may want to list out all the perks and benefits that your company can provide to ambitious and skilled candidates. But it’s useless to engage them with generic “benefits”, such as “an opportunity to work with experienced professionals”. 

Instead, you should tailor this section according to your company’s particular policy on PTO, sick leave, maternity leave, mentorship programs, and internal company promotion. All these factors can provide talented individuals with the proper incentive to work for your organization instead of a competitor!

Below is an example of the copy we used to point out the benefits of working for us while we were Content Distribution.com—a successful content agency:

BENEFITS OF WORKING WITH US

• Professional growth – we believe in helping each member of our team grow personally and professionally, and we promote from within

• Smart teammates and the ability to learn all facets of what makes a business successful

• 1 on 1 mentorship, along with team workshops 

• Small team environment that gives you the ability to stand out and make a big impact

• Competitive benefits and compensation package

• Flexible work schedule

Content Distribution provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type with regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Workello Offers a Plethora of Preset Job Description Templates for Various Roles! 

Workello has an extensive library of job description templates that you can easily adapt to suit the specific role you’re hiring for. 

If your company is rapidly expanding, and you need to hire from several of these categories at once, it can be very time-consuming to craft a job description for each individual role from scratch.

The good news is—with Workello, you won’t have to! Our knowledge base contains a wide variety of pre-configured job description templates that cover a range of different roles for various niches/departments:

• Human resources
• Content Team
• Sales
• Marketing
• PR & Communications
• Support
• Virtual Assistants

A Good Job Description is Helpful—But Workello Can Optimize Your Hiring Process Even Further

It’s helpful to have a template as a starting point, but the truth is—a great job description is just the first step towards building a team of top-performs. In order to find and hire the perfect candidate before they’re snatched up by another company, you need to have an efficient hiring system in place.

Workello is a find-tuned hiring system whose automated features can streamline every tedious aspect of the hiring process, letting you attract and hire skilled candidates faster while also drastically reducing your hiring costs! 

Once you sign up for Workello, you’ll be able to:

1. Post your job ads across as many hiring platforms as you can handle
2. Use a unified dashboard that gathers all applications in a single place no matter the job board they’re from
3. Track how many candidates you have and at what stage of your hiring funnel
4. Move your candidates through the funnel by updating their status with a single click!
5. Send automated tests that help you spot unqualified candidates with outstanding resumes
6. Enjoy Workello’s automated email system that reduces unnecessary transactional questions to a minimum while also lowering the chance of human error

Try out Workello for free right now! Everything’s pre-configured so you can start hiring as soon as you set up your account!