Writing a Job Description: The Game-Changing Template You Need NOW

<div class="grey-callout"><h2>Key Takeaways</h2><ul>
<li>Use Great Performance Profiles: These are the new job descriptions, used for recruitment and ongoing employee management.</li><li>Collaboration is vital: Work closely with your Recruitment Team to ensure Great Performance Profiles are job specific.</li>
<li>Essential components: Include job titles, responsibilities, and required qualifications., but also mention things you don't want!</li>
<li>Avoid jargon: Use straightforward language to ensure broad understanding.</li>
</ul></div>

Use a Great Performance Profile to Define a Great Performer

I use a document called a Great Performance Profile to describe Key Competencies, Measurable Outcomes, and Minimum Acceptable Standards (MAS) of a role. It explains to staff, “If you meet these expectations, and only these, then we will consider you to be doing a great job and to be a Great Performer”.

You may be thinking that a Great Performance Profile sounds like a thorough job description in itself – and you would be partly correct:

• Great: I use “great” to remind everyone that we don’t want good or poor.
• Performance: I prefer to use the word “performance” to emphasise that tasks can be completed in many ways (eg. through automation and outsourcing), not just by filling a job as the term “job description” implies.
• Profile: I use the term “profile” because the document goes beyond defining a Great Performer in the context of a recruitment process. The same metrics help during the employee onboarding period, reiterating to the new employee why they were hired and the expected standards. It should go on to be utilised in performance reviews; with clearly defined outcomes, employees can self-manage, knowing what to focus on and whether they meet the desired standard.

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Example of a Great Performance Profile

Before I describe how to draw up your own Great Performance Profile, I want to show you what one looks like. This example profile is for a hypothetical sales position. Feel free to adapt it as a template, but don’t copy it – your business, sales, standards, and requirements will differ from this example:

GREAT PERFORMANCE PROFILE: SALESPERSON

<table><tr>MISSION FOR POSITION

We need high-performing salespeople to develop new business, nurture repeat customers and provide a great service.</tr>

<tr>KEY SELECTION CRITERIA

1. Meets Key Competencies. A positive and money-motivated attitude is critical.
2. A proven business-to-business (B2B) sales track record is desirable, preferably selling high-volume items.</tr>

<tr>Specifically, we do NOT want the following:

• Highly experienced salespeople with lots of consultative sales experience who are not adaptable to following our process.</tr>

</table>

MEASURABLE OUTCOMES FOR A GREAT PERFORMER

<table>
<tr><td>Sales</td><td>Minimum Acceptable Standard (MAS)</td></tr>
<tr><td>> 1 month</td><td>Two or more sales</td></tr>
<tr><td>1 - 2 months</td><td>One or more sales per week</td></tr>
<tr><td>2 - 3 months</td><td>Two or more sales per week</td></tr>
<tr><td>3 - 4 months</td><td>Earned discretionary bonus</td></tr>
<tr><td>4 - 6 months</td><td>Consistently earned discretionary bonus, passed probation</td></tr>
<tr><td>6 - 12 months</td><td>More than £3,000 gross profit per month</td></tr>
<tr><td>12 - 24 months</td><td>More than £5,000 gross profit per month</td></tr>
<tr><td>24+ months</td><td>More than £8,000 gross profit per month</td></tr>
</table>

‍KEY COMPETENCIES OF A GREAT PERFORMER

<table>
<tr><td>Competency</td><td>Description</td><td>MAS</td></tr>
<tr><td>Integrity/trustworthy</td><td>Ironclad. Does not cut corners ethically. Earns the trust of co-workers. Puts the organisation above self-interest.</td><td>13</td></tr>
<tr><td>Conformist/coachable</td><td>Consistently follows our sales process and standards. Doesn’t deviate from the sales script by ad-libbing or going into consultative sales. Willing to unlearn bad habits and able to improve. Doesn’t need to be continually reminded of past issues.</td><td>13</td></tr>
<tr><td>Intrinsically motivated/independent worker</td><td>Able to work productively in a remote environment, staying focused and undistracted. Constantly searching for sales leads and making a high quantity of quality outbound sales calls.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ambitious</td><td>Desires to be successful in life. Goal-motivated, always striving to have and achieve more and constantly setting challenging objectives.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Performer</td><td>Persuasive and convincing in selling. Prioritises telephone calls where they can influence a sale rather than relying on emails.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Enthusiasm/passion</td><td>Exhibits dynamism, excitement and a positive can-do attitude that is infectious and creates customer confidence.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Energy/drive</td><td>Shows energy and dedication. Treats every sales call like it may be their last.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Excellence</td><td>Sets high stretch standards of performance for themselves. Low tolerance of mediocrity. Big sense of responsibility.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Tenacity</td><td>Consistently strives to achieve results. Conveys a strong need to win. Reputation for not giving up and not taking no for an answer.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Self-awareness/feedback</td><td>Recognises own strengths and weaknesses. Not defensive. Does not rationalise mistakes or blame others. Uses feedback mechanisms.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Communications (oral)</td><td>Communicates well one-on-one. Fluent, quick on their feet, good command of language. Keeps people informed.</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>Customer focus</td><td>Treats every customer like a unique individual. Monitors customer satisfaction. Is visible and accessible to clients.</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Organisation/planning</td><td>Metric and activity driven. Plans, organises, and schedules efficiently. Focuses on the key priorities of new business sales and upselling.</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Communications (written)</td><td>Writes clear, precise, well-organised documents using appropriate vocabulary and grammar.</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Team player</td><td>Reaches out to colleagues. Approachable. Leads peers to do what is best for the business.</td><td>5</td></tr>
</table>

‍Specifically, we do NOT need the following competencies:

• Intellect. Candidate does not need to acquire and absorb information rapidly.
• Education. Candidate does not need to have higher education.
• Creativity. Candidate does not need to create new approaches.

=== ENDS ===

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How to Create a Great Performance Profile

To create your own Great Performance Profile, follow these steps:

1. Assemble your Recruitment Team.
2. List Measurable Outcomes.
3. Consider Key Competencies.
4. Set Minimum Acceptable Standards for each Key Competency.
5. Conduct a sanity check!

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

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Step 1: Assemble your Recruitment Team

A Great Performance Profile should be created by a team of colleagues. Indeed, a SECRET of great recruitment is that two or more heads are always better than one. Different points of view will give a more rounded perspective whilst also reducing unconscious bias – all of which helps you employ the right candidates.

I’ve seen managers attempting to hire on their own make the following mistakes:

• They veer towards “like-minded individuals”: Subconsciously employing clones of themselves rather than those suited to the job, which can stifle innovation.
• They can hire friends and family: Potentially compromising quality and objectivity.
• They can make poor decisions if inexperienced: They don’t know what they don’t know.
• They can prolong the damage: Justifying their bad recruitment decisions by giving inaccurate appraisals, thus prolonging the damage being done to the business.
• They can feel desperate: Being too willing to compromise out of sheer desperation is natural because they feel the pain of not filling a role and lacking support.
• They can feel vulnerable: They don’t want to recruit Great Performers because of a concern that they may be superseded.

Having a minimum of two people in your Recruitment Team reduces these risks.

But don’t get carried away and have more than five members to avoid diminishing returns. A larger group can lead to complicated logistics, making it challenging to schedule meetings in a fast-moving labour market. Additionally, involving too many employees in recruitment can disrupt your core business operations and obscure lines of accountability, making it difficult to determine responsibilities and hold individuals accountable.

Where possible, your Recruitment Team should include:

• Senior leadership: They must set the tone, provide valuable insights, and show that recruitment decisions are taken seriously.
• The line manager: They’re familiar with the job, so they can provide unique insights and uncover things that others can’t. Also, they have a direct stake in ensuring a new employee succeeds; otherwise, they’ll suffer the consequences!
• A cross-functional interviewer: At the interview stage they can provide an unbiased and independent assessment to maintain hiring quality and cultural fit. This role is vital if a firm is experiencing strong growth and can’t afford to compromise on quality.
• HR or a recruitment advisor: They should be involved in some hiring, especially for senior positions. Their experience means they’re better able to determine a good fit and can significantly contribute to the overall recruitment process. Often you can find freelance staff who can step in as required.

Some Recruitment Teams may include a junior employee or peer on their list, thinking it can be a good test of a potential manager and send a positive message. However, I have reservations:

• Conflicts of interest: They may be influenced by concerns about changing workloads or interest in the job.
• Inexperience: They might not be capable of distinguishing a Poor Performer from a Great Performer.
• Immaturity: They might prefer to employ people they’ll get along with on a personal level, irrespective of skills or experience.
• Impracticalities: Confidential discussions may need to occur above their seniority level.

If you involve junior employees or peers on the Recruitment Team, ensure that you make it clear in advance that, while you value their opinion, they don’t have a veto. 

Moving forward, I may refer collectively to these people as “hiring managers”.

<span class="grey-callout"><span class="text-color-purple">Note:</span> If you’re fortunate enough to have an HR colleague, benefit from their professional knowledge and experience. They should be an excellent bridge between senior leaders and staff, seeing things from both the organisation’s and workers’ interests.  Regrettably, line managers sometimes undervalue HR’s knowledge and experience, cynically dictating expectations without listening to HR’s opinion. I appreciate you may sometimes have different personal objectives, but the overriding objectives should be those of the business.<p></p><p>Similarly, I may hear HR lack confidence and say, “I’m just in HR; this is what I’ve been told”. This type of statement indirectly does them and the profession a disservice. HR are not order takers but specialists, able to make a meaningful contribution. And especially if you’re in HR and are reading articles on this site, you will have distilled almost a lifetime of wisdom.</p><p>Having said that, there is nothing more frustrating than working with HR who can’t/won’t get answers to basic questions or can’t expedite the recruitment process. In these situations, I often realise that HR and recruitment are two completely different skill sets and mindsets.</p></span>

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<span class="purple-callout"><p>Are you looking for some advice or hands-on help? Let's chat – get your free consultation.</p><p>Also, be sure to check out my recruiting book for more tips - it's a bestseller.</p><p>I can even advertise jobs on the best UK job boards for just £199.</p></span>

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Step 2: List Measurable Outcomes

Work with the line manager and write specific Measurable Outcomes for a Great Performer. Don’t make the mistake of listing activities, such as “Make 100 sales calls per day”. Instead, come up with outcomes, such as “Make £10,000 in sales per month”.

Sometimes, it can be challenging to know how much detail to include. Keep working on the list and ask, “Is that enough?” Then, curate your list to include only the outcomes that deliver the most value (remember the 80/20 principle: 20% of outcomes will provide 80% of value).

Next, check whether an employee can influence outcomes and be held accountable.

A Great Performance Profile typically includes one to five outcomes for entry-level jobs. For management and leadership, this increases to around 10 (any more than this may be unrealistic). In the example profile, you’ll see there is only one outcome: how many sales they make. In this case, the outcome increases month on month to reflect that they should be improving.

Review your outcomes and ensure that you’re talking about Great Performers. There’s a tendency to think about average performance. Resist this and consider the outcomes a Great Performer would achieve through their drive to succeed.

Equally, make sure your outcomes don’t require supernatural powers to achieve! Being unrealistic may put candidates off at interviews and lead to unnecessary confrontation when you’re performance managing staff. The right balance is to set outcomes that are stretching but realistic. A good technique is to break your annual outcomes into monthly and weekly ones and see if they look reasonable. Conversely, multiply your weekly or monthly targets to see what they imply for the year. Do they still seem realistic and achievable?

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Step 3: Consider Key Competencies

The next section of the Great Performance Profile lists essential experience, skills and personality traits required to achieve desired outcomes. I refer to these collectively as “Key Competencies”. Ask yourself, “What experience, skills and behaviours would a Great Performer need to meet expectations and fit in with our company culture?” But don’t get bogged down in semantics; there can be many overlaps between definitions.

Points to consider:

• Will there be career progression, and if so, what competencies might employees need to develop? While it’s acceptable for a role not to have any career progression, this may make it less appropriate for an ambitious Great Performer.
• Don’t go soft on managers: If you’re recruiting managers, they can’t always be everyone’s friend to get results. You don’t want to hire a manager your employees hate, but you do need one who isn’t afraid of holding employees to high standards.
• Duration of experience may be meaningless: Some people plod on through their career for years, whilst another person may gain the same experience in significantly less time.
• Do you need a graduate? Some employers insist on graduates but, when pressed, recognise that what they’re looking for are candidates who have demonstrated an ability to learn and so are worth training. Quick learners are not exclusively graduates. Moreover, once someone has practical experience, university education becomes less relevant.
• Graduate recruitment should be inclusive: If you do need a graduate because a degree is a prerequisite for professional reasons, where someone studied matters less than their accomplishments. You might think that a graduate from a Russell Group or “redbrick” university is a bonus, but don’t overlook bright and hardworking graduates who have overcome hardship.
• Could you offer apprenticeship training? Apprenticeships can be a cost-effective way to develop your workforce. They also positively impact your employer brand, giving you a reputation as a company that invests in developing its workforce and the local community.
• Sector specialists may not be the best: It’s understandable to think that sector experience helps new hires hit the ground running or reduces the required staff training, but be mindful that what made them successful in the past may not make them successful with you. I’ve noticed this problem, especially with sales roles, where previous success was the result of a strong brand, product, or marketing.

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Remove unnecessary and inappropriate competencies

Often, there’s a sense of excitement about looking for the “perfect” employee. However, you frequently end up searching for a fictitious person based on wishful thinking if your list of Key Competencies is too long. Particularly in a competitive job market, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Go through each competency and ask yourself:

• “If they don’t have this competency, could they still meet the Measurable Outcomes?”
• “Could we teach and develop someone to have this competency?”

If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, then remove the competency.

Also, remove general requirements such as “punctual attendance” – these should be a given.

<span class="grey-callout"><span class="text-color-purple">Tip:</span> When writing a Great Performance Profile, some stakeholders ask for too much. Unfortunately, they may be so stubborn or politically powerful that you can’t negotiate with them.<p></p><p>My recommendation is to give a reality check! Genuinely try finding the “perfect” candidate they’ve described in the Great Performance Profile. If you receive no suitable applicants, tactfully demonstrate what you’ve learnt and help them understand that the situation will not improve unless the list of requirements is more realistic.</p></span>

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List competencies you don’t want

While it might seem odd to list what you don’t want, this can help bring clarity. Think of all the mis-hires you’ve made to inspire you!

In the example profile you’ll see these listed at the end of the document as an aide-memoire.

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Step 4: Set Minimum Acceptable Standards for each Key Competency

Not every Key Competency is equally important in a role, so they need to be scored in order of importance. To do this you need to decide on a Minimum Acceptable Standard (MAS) for each Key Competency using a scale of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 13 (13 being the most important).

In the example profile, integrity is at the top of the list with a score of 13. This is a non-negotiable character trait the successful candidate needs to exhibit. At the other end, being a team player only has a MAS of 5; it’s helpful, but not a deal breaker.

Resist the temptation to mark all competencies as 8 or 13, as you’ll rarely find that perfect person. Equally, should competencies scoring 1, 2 or 3 be part of your selection criteria?

Now rank all the competencies in descending order, with 13 at the top followed by 8, 5 and so on.

<span class="grey-callout"><span class="text-color-purple">Note:</span> You may have noticed my unusual way of scoring the MAS using a scale of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 13. This scale is the Fibonacci Sequence, and the great thing about it is that the numbers are far enough apart that you can easily tell the difference between them.<p></p><p>Most people use a five-point scale to rate someone, but I don’t recommend it because it’s difficult for our brains to tell whether someone is a 4 or a 5, and teams find it challenging to reach a consensus.</p></span>

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Step 5: Conduct a sanity check!

Well done on taking the time to write a thorough Great Performance Profile for your vacancy. The final step is to review what you’ve written and ask yourself, “Does this person exist, or am I asking too much?” More requirements mean less choice from what might be an already limited pool of talent.

This Venn diagram example shows that you’re targeting jobseekers where the circles overlap:

You want fewer requirements and bigger circles because there will be more overlap and choice. Consider the following points for your own Venn diagram:

• Local applicants: Are enough applicants living locally or at least willing to commute?
• Competent applicants: Do enough local jobseekers have the Key Competencies you require? Which competencies will be the hardest to find?
• Sector experience, if relevant: Do enough local and competent jobseekers have sector experience?
• Affordable applicants: Are you offering a competitive remuneration package for a local and competent person?
• Motivated applicants: Is an applicant more likely to accept your job offer than a competing employer?
• Availability of applicants: Recruitment can be cyclical. Some have micro-cycles (eg. professional exam dates), others have macro-cycles (eg. the oil and gas sector recruits according to the economy’s health and political developments). Recruiting trainees and apprentices may also be subject to seasonality around exams. Are there enough local, competent, affordable, and motivated applicants available now?
• Competition for applicants: Don’t just think of your direct competitors. Also, consider indirect competition. For example, if you’re on an industrial estate, many employers may want applicants with similar skills. Are those other employers better at attracting applicants and fast enough to make a job offer before you can?

If the overlap in your equivalent Venn Diagram is small, you could try the following:

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Location constraints

Some locations have almost no jobseekers. Common UK examples include Ayr, Bangor, Grantham, and the Suffolk coastline. Usually, these locations are isolated from transport links, have a small working age population, or are in a “commuting belt”. I’m sorry if this issue applies to you; recruitment will be challenging, and you will have to adjust your expectations.

An alternative may be to recruit remote workers (ie. staff who work from home). Whilst it may not be the perfect solution, it can be the most pragmatic. Moreover, being able to recruit from almost anywhere can increase the quality of applicants.

Some locations, such as London, command higher salaries, so you must increase the salary offered.

<span class="grey-callout"><span class="text-color-purple">Note:</span> Jobseekers rarely search beyond a 10-mile radius of their chosen location because many job sites set this by default. Consequently, although you might hope to attract applicants from farther away, job sites may technically make this challenging.</span>

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Sector experience barriers

It is common to want sector experience, hoping it will reduce training, bring competitor insights, and possibly a portfolio of customers. Sadly, this is rarely possible because there probably aren’t that many local jobseekers who work for a competitor.

Shortlisting also becomes more challenging. Many applicants don’t specify their industry experience clearly on their CV. Therefore, you need to do additional research to determine the relevance of their previous employment, like verifying whether a company like “Unitel” operates within the digital marketing sphere.

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Part-time jobs

Filling part-time positions presents unique challenges. Typically, there’s a smaller pool of applicants, many of whom have strict time constraints, such as preferring school hours and taking school holidays off. This situation may necessitate flexibility and adjustments on the employer’s part.

Job sharing introduces further complexity, limiting flexibility in scheduling. For instance, if one part-timer works Monday and Friday, a counterpart for Tuesday to Thursday is needed. It’s crucial that these employees collaborate effectively to handover work correctly.

It is also important to appreciate that personal reasons often drive a part-time candidate’s motivation to work. This means you need to adapt what you offer, such as enhanced work-life balance, discussed in chapter 8 of my recruitment book and this article on understanding candidate motivation.

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Additional Resources

• Talent Acquisition Book; The Secrets of Great Recruitment: How to Recruit Great Employees.
• Downloadable PDF guide; Ditch Job Descrptions: How to Write Great Performance Profiles.
• Downloadable PDF guide; Realistic Recruitment: The "Perfect" Employee Doesn't Exist.
• Article; How to Write a Job Description: Crafting a Practical Document.
• Article; Do You Need to Recruit A-Players and Unicorns? A Simple Guide to Finding Great Employees.
• Article; Recruitment Strategies: The Secret to Faster, Cheaper, and More Effective Hiring.