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Part 1 — A job description paints a thousand question marks
7 job description considerations
You can learn a lot about a company from the descriptions of their roles. The application process provides an opportunity for an employer to evaluate a potential employee, scanning for red flags, but the reverse of this is also very true.
As a job-seeker, it’s important to understand the steps involved in creating a job description, especially in large companies, to give you the best chance of choosing the roles that are right for you, as early as possible.
Next time a job description catches your eye, keep in mind these seven considerations.
1. How specific is the job description?
The specificity of a job description is often related to the size of an organisation. Larger, more established organisations are likely to have hired for this role previously, so will have a standardardised approach. A smaller business will probably be doing this for the first time, so will provide a more personalised description of the role, and the wider business.
In either case, you should see as an absolute minimum:
- Location
- Who the role reports into
- Why the role is open
- Is it a newly created role
