HOW TO WRITE A JOB ORDER

by Dean W. Johnson

We get far more bad job orders than good job orders.

In the past, when the newspaper was the communications medium of choice for recruiters it was important to get the most bang for buck, or word, or in fact sometimes letter. Job orders were short, concise, abbreviated yet attractive. It wasn't so important to get a specific candidate because a specific job might be filled over the ads run. You may be able to get a candidate into one of your other jobs, so job postings were vague. We still see these kinds of job orders from the old timers, those who claim long experience as though it were expertise.

Well times have changed. You are not being charged by the word or letter anymore. You are being charged by the job order and it can be 10 words long or a 1000 words long. You have the opportunity to describe that job fully, with real words and not abbreviations. you can focus in on attracting that more qualified job applicants to apply for that job.

What is the goal of a job order?

1. Attract the right candidate for this job so you can make a placement.
2. Attract as many applicants as possible to fill up your resume bank

Attract the right candidate

To attract the right candidate your job order should be as specific as possible listing all the skills, tools and experience the hiring authority is looking for. To get this specificity you will have to interview the hiring authority to see what his hot buttons are and what will make him respond in your favor or the favor of your candidate.

If the hiring authority refuses to be specific you can get a clue that the company just wants to look like it is hiring for corporate image but it isn't really hiring. That happens all too often. You'd like to put your efforts into job opportunities that are really productive, so you can put your efforts where they belong and ignore instances where there is no specificity.

You compose the job order highlighting the important skills, tools and experience. These are your keywords, and they should focus the attention of search engines. All of the keywords should be included. If they are discussed more than once, their chance of coming up in a search increases.

Keywords attract and they also eliminate. If an applicant doesn't have all keywords then they have reason to believe that they have little chance at getting the job. The really bright ones will compose their resumes to speak directly to the keywords in the job order. It is like my college professors grading on a curve determined by how they were parroted in the exam. This same effect will influence your hiring authority in your applicants favor and ultimately your favor.

Attract as many applicants as possible

You will sweep in many applicants who don't fit this particular job order, just as you did with your old generic job advertisements. This is because applicants broadcast their resumes over a wide range of jobs. It costs them next to nothing to email you a resume, and most, lacking writing skills or patience have a generic resume written for them. The task is to be able to easily filter through that stream of resumes, classify them for further reference, for other jobs that may come along and zero in to candidates that have a chance at succeeding.

Closing in on a Hire

Once you have a candidate that may be close to what you're looking for, you can interview him for the entire range of keywords in the job order and make sure that they are thoroughly discussed in the experience section of his resume before you submit.

Once the keywords in the job order are matched by the keywords in the resume, you have a match that has a chance to fill your position. You've earned it on both sides of the transaction.