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How to Write a Job Description

By Vahid Haghzare, Director Silicon Valley Associates Recruitment &

Victor Chen, Senior Recruiter, Silicon Valley Associates Recruitment

One of the top IT Recruitment Agencies in Hong Kong SAR, Dubai, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Singapore, and Japan, SVA Recruitment is an IT and employment agency that provides jobs, executive search, and recruitment services.

Job descriptions are crucial to the success of the company. While it is not legally mandated by law, companies can gain practical benefits from it. Job descriptions are important because they communicate to candidates and employees exactly what kind of tasks are expected from them.

Job descriptions can help identify particular skills or abilities that are necessary for a position or the environmental pressures that apply to the position. This will set the expectations of both the hiring officer and candidates. Doing so also helps avoid job mismatch because job descriptions contain a comprehensive set of responsibilities and qualifications recommended for certain positions. Thus, help you ensure in recruiting the best candidates.

Silicon Valley Associates Recruitment highlights the important areas and a step-by-step process of creating a practical job description. To start, the following areas need to be considered.

Company Introduction

It is essential to provide a succinct company introduction to your job description. This will allow the candidate to have an overview of the nature of the organization.

Company Mission, Vision, & Values

Your job description should ideally communicate the company's mission, vision, and values to set the candidates' perception of the organization and if these elements match their beliefs or passion.

Company Culture

Effective job descriptions also provide an overview of the company's culture to prepare candidates for the kind of organization they would be applying with. Knowing the corporate culture also allows candidates to weigh them with their beliefs and passion in a kind of working environment.

Team & Management Style

This is one of the underestimated areas that companies fail to include in a practical job description because it missed the chance to orient candidates' expectations.

Others: Job Tasks and Career Path

A good job description also indicates precise job tasks and career paths. Most of the time, companies usually won't bother with these areas, which could miss the chance of motivating candidates to apply for the position.

SVA Recruitment helps you layout an effective job description that will attract the right candidate for the job. In order to do so, we have to carefully tailor the requirements, responsibilities, skills, and qualifications necessary for the job position you are offering.

Step 1: Job Title

The first step in creating an effective job description is to give the position a job title. Job titles play a crucial role in targeting the candidate pool you are seeking. Therefore, it is the key to getting the attention of the candidate.

Effective Job Titles must:

Accurately reflect the nature of the job and the duties that are expected to be performed
Be generic to be consistent with similar jobs in the industry and for the candidate to be easily searched
Be self-explanatory for recruitment purposes
Reflects its ranking order with other jobs in the company

For example: "IT Director" indicates that this position is not for entry-level candidates.

Step 2: Role Summary

Companies must provide a clear summary of the importance of the position and how the role contributes to the success of the business. This is the part where companies can also provide a succinct company introduction, mission, vision, and values. Companies can also provide an overview of the corporate culture to motivate candidates to apply for the job.

Step 3: Duties/Responsibilities

A job description must contain a list of the duties and responsibilities associated with the position's role. This is essential to elaborate on what are the tasks expected to be performed by the candidates and if they are qualified to do so.

The listed tasks must ideally describe outcome-based terms, contains necessary assignments, and the purpose of the action. You can also share the team and management style in this part to maximize expectations about the duties and responsibilities.

Step 4: Qualification & Skills

A list of qualifications and skills must also be comprehensive to match the candidates'. This part of the job description must be written separately from duties and responsibilities, which can be a common mistake by others. The education level and type, professional certifications, technical and soft skills, and years of experience are stipulated here.

Some elements in this part include one's competencies, which refers to the inherent traits a candidate is expected to display in carrying out the responsibilities of the job position. Meanwhile, skills refer to the abilities that a candidate has possessed from experience or qualifications obtained.

For example: Being proficient in Microsoft Office is a skill while having strong leadership and a sense of ethics are considered competencies.

Step 5: Relationship

Another essential element in writing a job description is indicating relationships. This includes reporting lines and working relationships. Reporting lines elaborate on the organization's flow of reporting structure, while working relationships refer to the people that the position will be most likely to work closely with.

Step 6: Salary & Career Path

Companies can also indicate the salary for the position and the potential career path they can take to attract candidates more and motivate them to apply.

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Silicon Valley Associates is ideally positioned to support the continual demand from tech companies and IT Departments looking to hire in Hong Kong, Asia, and Worldwide. Please let us know if you would further advise on the above topic or your hiring needs