[MUSIC PLAYING] The job posting is an important aspect of the recruitment process as it sets the benchmark for the types of skills and experiences you'll be attracting in applicants. For many candidates, this is also the first exposure to the company and the role. So it's important to keep the language really inviting. When you're writing the job posting, keep in mind that the voice and tone of the posting should be true to the culture of the company and you.
It should be informative but personable. I recommend including a short paragraph at the beginning that introduces the company or the team they'll be working with. We occasionally even include a testimonial from a current employee. But that depends on the role. The basics of the posting start with the immediate high-level description of the job's goals, which are the major chunk of the overall posting. We call this "about the role." But again, feel free to play around with the language as it suits you.
For this section, include a bulleted list of required skills and experience. Make sure to only include things that are essential as this will ensure that you have the highest likelihood of diversity in your pool of applicants. The more specific the skills and experience, the fewer the applicants. That said, if you'd like to include a little more detail, add on a section we call "nice to haves," which is really just the skills that aren't necessarily required to be successful in the job but would be assets.
This can provide more context for the applicant but without limiting the talent pool. Next in the job posting is conveying the immediate team this candidate will be working with and what problems the role will be solving. At the end of the day, you want all hires to be successful in their job. So outlining realistic expectations on their day to day and what success will look like for them is really, really important.
When you first speak with a candidate, this is generally the types of questions they'll want answers to anyways. At Shopify, we literally call this "what you'll be working on," which isn't revolutionary, I know. But keep this high level. We want to sell the role. You want candidates to feel excited when they read it. So feel free to include information about mentoring, learning or growth opportunities, or exciting projects the team may have worked on in the past.
Lastly is the closing. At Shopify, we use this part of the posting to encourage candidates to apply even if they don't check all the boxes, so to speak. Skills are transferable, and experience comes in many different forms. So this is a really important part of the posting. This is your last chance to encourage potential candidates to apply. Depending on the role, you can include a challenge question as well, being mindful of the time requirements for the applicant.
Ask them to craft a video about themselves as part of the application, for example. Or if they're applying for a social role, what media accounts or social media influencers impress or inspire you the most? These are questions that add a bit more personality to the application and give you, the hiring manager, an answer to a question you might have asked already. Lastly, review your posting, and ensure that the right language has been used throughout.
It's consistent, and it's important for a number of reasons. Firstly, you want to make sure your job postings are accessible to as many people as possible. This means ensuring that the language used isn't exclusionary or tied to any gender-specific pronouns. Using words like rockstar, or ninja, or powerhouse tend to evoke more masculine qualifications and, thus, result in fewer female applicants.
Tools like textio are also awesome for this. It will scan through the entire document for repetitive words, phrases, and assess the overall strength of the posting. [MUSIC PLAYING]
