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Job Description template

By 
Slite
Plain and simple, a job description is a summary of a specific job. It answers questions like: "What kind of experience would an ideal candidate for this position have?" and "What would an employee's day-to-day tasks look like working in this position?"
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What is a job description?

A job description is a detailed summary of a role, where an employer describes the responsibilities, tasks, qualifications, and requirements needed for that position.


Who writes the job description?

Job descriptions are most often used during the hiring process and are common human resources tools. They're often included on job boards and as part of job postings to give potential applicants a detailed description of the position they're interested in.


Sounds handy, right? Right! Effective job descriptions are incredibly useful, but notoriously tricky to put together.

Pro Tip: Job descriptions aren't only about describing available positions. Companies also use them to sell themselves and attract top talent.

What's a great job description?

Of course, the definition of a great job description is highly subjective. Nevertheless, there are a few key elements that will make your job descriptions stand out and be well-received every time.

Stay honest and transparent

This is a big one. Unfortunately, a lot of companies put vague and misleading job descriptions out there. Just take a browse through LinkedIn and you’ll see what we mean.


This is the wrong approach to take if you want to attract your ideal candidate. Make sure you are honest and transparent through your entire job description.


What do we mean by that? Well, first things first, specify the position’s level of seniority and salary. It’s just not transparent to be vague about compensation. If you want to provide a salary range, that’s fine, but it doesn’t come off well if you don’t say anything. It makes it seem like you want to pay your employees as little as possible or just don’t care enough to give them an idea of what they’ll be earning in the position.


In the same vein, you should be honest about what’ll be expected of your new employee. That means working hours, vacation schedules, benefits, work environment, the works. There’s no use in telling prospective employees they can work from home on occasion, when in reality you want them to come into the office every day.

Use captivating, intriguing language

If you’re not going to sell your prospective employee on an open position in your company, who will? Be sure to get a good writer who can use captivating, intriguing language to put together your job description.


This doesn’t only make a good impression and pique prospective employees’ interest. It also acts as an introduction to your company culture, atmosphere, and attitude. The way companies express themselves in job descriptions says a lot about them. A friendly, modern, and approachable job description says that applicants can expect a similar vibe at your company.

Organized for skimming

Most of the time, job applicants are sifting through hundreds of job descriptions while looking for the right position. That means that they might not have the time or attention span to read each one from beginning to end. If they think they’d be a good fit for the role or see something that catches their attention, they’ll stop and read it more thoroughly.


For this reason, it’s a great idea to write a well-organized job description that makes use of headings and subheadings. That way, it’ll be easy for applicants to find the information they need at a glance. In the long run, you’ll get more applicants that way.

Be open

Although it’s a good idea to be specific in your job description, don’t be too specific. Being too narrow-minded about the kind of candidate you want might limit the applications you receive.


Use neutral language and be flexible in the kind of experience and background you’re looking for. You’ll attract much more diverse applicants that way, which will add strength and varied perspectives to your team.

What should you include in your job description?

Job descriptions vary between companies and industries, but their main contents are pretty consistent across the board. They often include the following:

Basic information & context

This includes information related to the hiring company, company culture, and job title.

Example:

  • Job title: Director of Engineering
  • Report to: @pierre, CTO

A job summary

Here, the company provides a general description of the position available as well as its associated job responsibilities.

Example:

  • We’re looking for a passionate senior full-stack engineer with skills and experience in growth to build Slite's long-term sustainable growth with us.

Job duties & responsibilities

These are often listed in order of importance and describe what the successful candidate would do on a day-to-day basis working in the position.

Example:

  • Help developers grow their skills and experience
  • Work closely with product and design teams on Cycle pitches
  • Conduct code reviews and monitor knowledge sharing between developers

Objectives

These points focus less on tasks and more on what a person working in a position would actually achieve within a company.

Example:

  • Every growth experiment we work on aims at improving our acquisition metrics
  • You will launch initiatives to maintain and scale the engineering stack’s growth

Required studies

Although we've started ditching resumes in our hiring process, most of companies will provide expected degrees, certifications, qualifications, and experience.

Example:

  • Bachelor's degree and 5 years of relevant experience
  • At least 3 years of managing a Content Marketing team

Job requirements

This section typically doesn't focus on concrete achievements like degrees or work experience, but rather on skills and abilities.

Example:

  • Deep JavaScript experience
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Work environment

This varies from industry to industry, but if your open position involves working conditions that are physically demanding or particular, this is where they should be made clear.

Example:

  • Remote setup: coworking or at-home setup, your pick. Slite covers your expenses up to 400$/month
  • We go on team OffSlites (this is how we call our retreats) every 4 months

Benefits

Make a list of the benefits you can offer and all the awesome things your company has with a call to action to apply. Acquiring great candidates is hard, most companies try to offer extended perks!

  • 🤩  Competitive salary and equity
  • 🏝  5Weeks PTO + 11 French Holidays 🇫🇷
  • 📚  Buy any book policy
  • 💻  Macbook Pro or Air depending on your need

"Send us your application"

Some popular job description examples

Above, we worked with the example position of Director of Engineering. Here are a few more popular job descriptions if you need help getting started:

Marketing Manager

Description: Is developing and carrying out excellent, unique, and high quality marketing strategies your passion? If it is, this job is for you. We’re looking for a dynamic, experienced marketing manager to lead our marketing team and take our brand identity to new heights.


Requirements:

  • A degree in marketing or a related field
  • At least 10 years of experience working in the marketing industry
  • Experience creating and carrying out large-scale marketing strategies
  • Experience building social media marketing campaigns is an asset
  • Passionate about marketing and up-to-date with all the latest marketing tools & trends
  • Great copywriting and communication skills
  • Experience with branding and brand development
  • A good eye for graphic design and aesthetics
  • Comfortable with a variety of website analytics tools


Responsibilities:

  • Act as the main strategist behind marketing campaigns and company branding
  • Responsible for developing tactics to drive leads and traffic to our website
  • Develop strategies to nurture leads and build long-term customer relationships
  • Responsible for running marketing campaigns from their launch to conclusion
  • Strategize on the best paid advertising channels
  • Produce valuable and engaging marketing content
  • Edit and sign off on all marketing content
  • Work with acquisition channels like content creation, pay per click campaigns, event management, public relations, copywriting, and social media platforms.
  • Analyze and report on the performance of marketing strategies and campaigns
  • Undertake consumer and market research
  • Prepare and monitor the company’s marketing budget

Full Stack Developer

Description: We’re looking for a mid-level full stack developer to add to our dynamic software development team. If you’re experienced, flexible, are looking for a new challenge, and want to join a passionate team of software developers, this position is for you.


Requirements:

  • Undergraduate degree in computer science or similar
  • At least 2 years work experience working as a full stack developer or similar
  • Experience with front-end languages like HTML, CSS, and Javascript
  • Experience with server-end languages like Python, Ruby, Java, and PHP
  • Familiar with JavaScript frameworks like AngularJS and Amber
  • Familiar with database technology like MySQL and Oracle
  • Comfortable taking the lead on projects, working independently, and forming part of a larger development team
  • Great organization skills and attention to detail
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills


Responsibilities:

  • Participating in all stages of projects’ life cycles from beginning to end
  • Investing time in constant professional development so you are up to date with new technological developments and programming languages
  • Work with graphic designers in the creation of websites, webpages, and more
  • Developing front-end website architecture
  • Developing back-end website architecture
  • Carrying out user interface and user experience strategies in the development process
  • Integrating insights arising from market and consumer research
  • Ensuring that all projects are responsive across various devices (mobile, desktop, etc.)
  • Developing APIs
  • Creating servers and databases

How to write a job description?

Ready to go? Start putting together your job description template by:

Step 1: Brainstorming

Don't skip this step! Brainstorming and bullet points are how great job descriptions come together. Make sure to involve people who are familiar with the open position and ideally, people who have held the position in the past.

Step 2: Doing your Research

Check out sample job descriptions from companies you admire or read through job descriptions that your company has used in the past. Take note of what you like and don't like about them. This will help you find the right voice for your job description.

Step 3: Being Specific

Avoid vague language and be as specific as possible when it comes to job requirements and expectations. This will help attract top talent and avoid confusion later down the road. If the open position carries specific expectations with it, make sure you state them clearly.

Ask yourself: "What do I expect a successful candidate to accomplish in this position within 3 months? A year? 3 years?"

Step 4: Showing what you can offer

If your company's a great place to work, now's the time to say so! Make sure to capture your company's spirit and culture in your job description, especially in the introduction. Make sure top talent knows why they should be working with you!

...there you have it! We can't wait to see the top talent your attract for your next open position!

How can I improve my job description?

You might already have written a job description or are working off an existing template. Nevertheless, you can still likely make some edits and improve the quality of your job description overall. Here are a few easy steps that will take your job description to the next level.

Think outside the box

If you want to jazz up your job description a little bit, why not try something different? There’s no need to stick to plain old words and text. If you use a content management system like Slite, it’s easy to integrate a wide variety of media into your documents. Think images, videos, infographics, tables, and more.

Provide a summary at the beginning

As discussed earlier, applicants often have tons of job descriptions to look through. In order to make sure job searchers find the information they need as quickly as possible, it’s a great idea to provide an overview or quick summary of the position available at the beginning of your job description.

Tips: if you use a Slite document to publish your job description, you can add a table of content by typing the /command. Or just record yourself in a Video Cover to walk the candidates through your document.

Be sure to include the job title and seniority level, as well as the fundamentals about required qualifications and responsibilities. If the reader thinks the job could be a good fit for them, they’ll keep reading for the finer details.

Make it visually appealing

If it isn’t already, try and make your job description as visually appealing as possible. It should look organized, professional, sleek, and reflect your brand.


The easiest way to do this is by using a ready-made template like ours, hint hint.

Keep it short and sweet

Job descriptions are tricky because you need to include all the most essential information, but you also don’t want to go overboard with details. If your job description is pages long and takes a long time to read through, you’ll not only lose applicants, but people will also get bogged down with details and miss key information.


Be sure to review your job description and ensure that it strikes the right balance between including all the most important information without being too long winded.


What are the benefits of writing a job description?

By now you might be asking yourself why you should put time into writing an effective job description. Well, job descriptions...

  • Help you find the best candidates for your open position. If your company has a good idea of the ideal candidate for a position and that spirit is transmitted through your job description, top talent that fits the bill will take notice
  • Assist hiring managers and human resources personnel in putting together employment contracts and providing them with an employee handbook when a successful candidate is found
  • Act as a basis for measuring future employee performance
  • Especially in the context of larger organizations, job descriptions help keep track of the mandates of different positions within the larger framework
  • Give you the opportunity to highlight your company culture and tell qualified candidates why they'd love working for you

Tip: Job descriptions can also be used as benchmarks for compensation, career planning, promotions, discipline, job evaluations, and professional development.


Try Slite's free job description template

Hiring processes can be overwhelming, so many human resources managers have trouble finding the time to put together effective job descriptions.

That's where Slite comes in. Duplicate our template and start writing your own.

Slite is a great tool for your hiring team and managers to put together great job descriptions, in a deep, thoughtful and collaborative way. We're here to make your recruitment process a breeze.

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