how to write job descriptions

Francis:

Talking about your job description, we talked about the budget. Let’s go through to improve the existing job description itself.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

If that’s okay with you, Stefan.

Stefan:

Yeah, it’s okay.

Francis:

Okay. You are quite specific about what you want especially that you need it to be re-drawn. You could highlight more that the person should have skills with hand drawing. 

Stefan:

I didn’t know if I want it hand drawn because I knew also that this is time consuming.

Francis:

Yes, I agree.

Stefan:

So I didn’t think that this is necessarily the only way that we can go. 

Francis:

Okay.

Stefan:

So I could have added that part like in brackets like vectographics style, black and white or hand drawn style.  Maybe that’s the way to do it really light. Absolutely.

Francis:

Okay. And we have to work out a style that suits this E-book. So you could emphasize that the first work, as you say, is finding the right solution on how to represent the graphics and then its work.

And then, repeat the process for each other picture. So that the outsourcer knows, who applies, well first it will be research and then it will work. 

Some people are looking for work. Not everyone wants to be a problem solver.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

Most people want to work.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

When you say the E-book has to be finalized in a consistent way, I think I understand what you mean; an applicant probably not. 

Stefan:

Okay.

Francis:

To improve the existing job description, you could emphasize that you say, “I am looking for a finalized E-book product with cover, layout format, writing font, picture placement, picture subtitles, etc…so really layout what you want.

We only talked about the columns so that could be one item. As I said, the budget will not be sufficient for 50 pictures in 60 pages but I think I got this point across already. 

Aside of which, you posted the job in to the area of…let me see…

Stefan:

Design and Multimedia Illustration.

Francis:

Design and Multimedia illustration…yes. You will find designers in Design and Multimedia. However, designers in general are more expensive. In my experience in working with assistants in the range of $1-7 an hour with $5 and above being expensive for my budget is not with graphic people.

But I know that graphic people are expensive in general. So the amount of people you can find for low budget, ready to do the amount of work you are actually looking for is limited.

So what I propose for you is that you post, if you would post a job, in a broader section; virtual assistants, for example. You will get many spam applications from people you don’t want.

But you might find one person who has some experience with Photoshop and, in general, lots of experience with assistants and who is a good communicator.

A virtual or personal assistant whom you can find in the category of, I think its virtual assistants; categories are administrative support.  It’s the primary category. And then it’s personal assistant or other administrative support. 

Stefan:

Yes. Good.This will really help to improve the existing job description.

Francis:

And there are just much more people on oDesk in these categories, so you have a bigger chance to find that one diamond in the rough for you project.

Stefan:

How I did it was make it in a non-public job.

Francis:

Okay.

Stefan:

And then I search for people. And I didn’t search in the categories as searched by skills like Photoshop and InDesign, stuff like that.

So I wanted the people to specifically say that they have the skill. Not that they could do it but from themselves on they just say “I have Photoshop skills” as a primary skill of them.

And I still got like hundreds – too many people – to invite.

Francis:

Okay.

Stefan:

So I further narrowed it down to take only people with a lot of work hours and in my price range. And then I came down to like 50 still.

Then I just invited like 20 people and those were extremely specified already into the niche that I wanted the worker to be. So that was my approach.

Francis:

Okay. So it’s my mistake, I had the impression you did not have the enough applicants. But you did have enough applicants so I’d rather have too many.

Stefan:

I did. There were too many that I specified it so much because I didn’t want to do 300 invitations. So I narrowed it down to half like 50 people or 20 people.

The less, the better but there were already filtered by oDesk.

So, yes, that was my approach and I got still bad applications which were surprising because they were all people that have 5-stars and top rankings and top test results which was surprising to me.

Francis:

Yes. It is rather surprising that you think, “Hey, I took time to write this job description; why don’t you read it?”

But on the other hand, if you think like them, they apply to as many jobs as they can in order to land one job.

It’s a numbers game to some of them. Not all of them but some of them.

Stefan:

Until we’re already the best of the best. So, I wonder how they get so good.

So many billed hours and such a good ranking without applying properly which is a little bit confusing but still I got a lot of applications that were discarded immediately.

Francis:

I think it’s good that you went quickly about it to weed out the lesser applications. How did the “Sunshine Test” work for you?

I really liked that you mentioned that one.

Stefan:

Yeah. This is the thing that I learned from you like one and a half years back. 

Francis:

Yes, I learned it from someone else so it’s not my credit.

Stefan:

Yeah but still I personally learned it from you. And since I used it that is the best tip to weed out everybody who didn’t read your application.

One applicant brought me an application and he didn’t write “Sunshine”. So I was first that, “Oh, you didn’t read my text.” But you later, like a couple of hours later, he wrote me “Oh, sorry I forgot to mention the word.”

So that was okay because it was an honest mistake. 

Francis:

He was lucky you read the whole description. Because, normally, if I specifically make the sunshine test and asked for the word “Sunshine” at the beginning of the application; I will only look at the preview of the interview which shows the first few lines of the interview.

If I don’t see sunshine there and I have many applicants, I will not read all those applications which do not start with “Sunshine”.

Stefan:

I opened all the applications because as I said I already reduced it to like 50 invitations and I allocate like 20 applications.

And from that, in the preview I could see that of this 20 people that applied, around 6-7 were like one-liners where you see that the person only wrote one line or a simple “Okay.”

Like I got an application which was like I invited the person and said, “Please apply to this job.” I was pretty surprised when the person replied “Yes, okay.” That was funny.  

Francis:

Yes, he meant it very literally.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

“Yes, I’ll apply.”

Stefan:

“Yes, I’ll apply.” But no I meant like please explain how you think. Did I say like?

Francis:

You should say that.

Stefan:

Yes, yes. Maybe I should have added…

Francis:

“So, I have a job offer which might be very good for your profile, if you think you’re the right person, please explain why you would be the best person and apply correctly.”

Something like that.

Stefan:

Yeah, definitely. I forgot to do that. Around from those 20 applications, 7 were like I was able to discard immediately because they were one-liners and the other 13 were like real applications.

But only around 4 of the 13 mentioned “Sunshine”. 

Francis:

So, 4 of the 13 read the whole job description and acted upon it. 

Stefan:

Yes. 

Francis:

Interesting.

Stefan:

So like maybe 20% of my applicants were even reading the description from already really, really specific criteria to recruit them – to hire them.  

Which was, again, a little bit disappointing because I’m always hoping that people put more effort in that because when I do jobs for other people I put more effort into it.

And this is kind of disappointing that other people don’t.

Francis:

Yes. From my personal experience when I was looking for a job, I was starting to put a lot of effort in my applications.

And when I sent them out by the dozens literally and got few, if any response, I got a little bit hardened and bolder with my moves. So I tried to get a little bit faster with my applications. 

And in the end I learned, on the hard way, that written applications good or bad are never really a solution. The only thing which helped me get a job were personal contacts.

I went to meetings, to the job fairs and learned to present myself personally and on the phone. And that was much more effective than any written application.

In transferring this experience to online jobbing, I assume that people write tons, if hundreds, of applications and never get even so much as a Thank you.

So they might be not so inspired to write a fully long application for each job offer they would be interested. So sometimes, big is the essence.

Stefan:

Which is real because I can imagine that since I behave like that. A lot of people would appreciate a good application of a person that just wrote and like thought about the job and comes up with a good application. 

It doesn’t have to be a specific file of all the skills, it can be short. Short is good but just talk about job.

Talk about your ideas of the job. And, I think, I appreciate that. I hire people that apply like this. So I would imagine, a lot of people would appreciate that.

Francis:

I agree. I completely agree. If I have shortlisted 5 or 50 applicants and all of them have sort of nice applications to my job offer, who have passed the “Sunshine” test for example, has shown some personality; I take the time to interview them.

And if I cannot take them because I cannot hire 5 of them, I will say, “Sorry. I really liked your application.” I will tell them what was good and I will also keep them in mind for possible future jobs.

In the past I had some data analysis and I hired one person and I had 5 interesting other prospects. Sometimes later, I hired one of those 5 applicants.

I went back to them and said, “I really liked our interview that time. Would you be interested in another job?”

So you can make contacts and really give good feedback to the nice people who do good applications. I really think that’s good.

Stefan:

I cannot really understand why people don’t take their time with the application. I mean, a lot of times it isn’t paid back. Maybe in the sum it doesn’t matter.

But I don’t know. I would think that it matters. It brings a better profit for the people that work for you when they apply properly. But that’s just my assumption.

Francis:

It’s not only your assumption, it’s also mine. And I think my virtual assistant will be sharing this point of view.

Luckily, a few virtual assistants are always reading over my shoulder when I write blog posts that are intended for employers and the other way around. 

So since this is everything is opened here. Let’s just rest again that as an employer, we really, really appreciate it when an application as a virtual assistant applies with a correct, high quality application.  

Stefan:

We’re first to the job. That is specific about the job. It has to be about the job. The person has to show that he thought about the job and how he could handle the job.

If that’s given, I’m willing to hire that person right away. It’s a huge bonus. So, I think, that’s very important.

Francis:

I agree. 

So yeah, we talked one and a half hour. I just want to add that it will be interesting. I will share this in the Mastermind group in real time.

How I will progress with this interview will be, you will hold me accountable for it.  

I aim to create several blog posts and/or tier pages with them from this interview as a transcript. My transcriptionist will have quite some work to do this.

So please give me and her some time to do this. But I will keep you posted and I hope that this interview will be useful for anyone who takes the time to read it in full.

Stefan:

Yes. Okay.

Francis:

So, thanks very much for agreeing to do this interview, Stefan.

Stefan:

Thank you very much for your help – constructive feedback.

Francis:

It’s my pleasure 🙂