Job descriptions may just be the most important part of the hiring process. Why? Because a job description is the first point of contact between the job candidate and the prospective employer. Consider your job description the “first impression” a candidate will get of your company. You never get a second chance at a first impression, so getting your job description right the first time is important. Despite this, it’s something that companies seem to get wrong repeatedly. An easy way to perfect your job descriptions is by getting the job requirements right.

In this blog, we discuss the importance of job requirements and give you four great tips to really make your requirements shine brightly in the eyes of your prospective candidates.

The Importance of Job Requirements

The job requirements section of your job description might be the most important part of it. It’s the section that candidates will focus on the most to see whether or not they’re a good fit for the role. Based on these, Candidates will typically decide whether or not they will apply. Believe it or not, candidates can get a good sense of your company culture when they read them! 

Getting these right is also important for hiring managers and employers. By honing in on exactly what you might be looking for in an employee, you are ten steps ahead in finding the right candidate for the role. Creating specific, inclusive requirements that are easy for candidates to read will convince the best of the best to apply for the job.

Common requirements typically include work experience, level of education, technical and/or soft skills, professional certifications and/or licenses, languages spoken, relevant knowledge, personality traits, or physical abilities, among other things. Whether or not any of these requirements are important or applicable to the job you offer candidates is completely up to your discretion.

4 “Must-Haves” for Great Job Requirements

When deciding what the “job requirements” section of your job description will look like, there are clear ways to make yours the best it can be. Here are four surefire ways to make your job requirements as great as possible!

Keep Them Easy to Read

The job requirement section of a job description should be short, easy to read, and to the point. Using bullet points to list the requirements is a great way to organize them so that they are easy for candidates to understand. You should also refrain from choosing to use complex or long words when you could use simpler words with fewer syllables instead.

Another great way to make them easier for job candidates to read through is to separate your job requirements into two lists: “required” and “preferred”. You could even call these lists “must-haves” and “wish-list” for a friendlier, more welcoming tone!

Language is Important

When writing job requirements, the language you use is more important than you might realize. If you use the wrong language when writing out your job requirements, you may be hindering qualified candidates from applying.

Language should be inclusive and not intimidate diverse candidates from underrepresented groups from applying for the role. For example, gendered words like “ninja” or “rockstar” are often associated with men. Using words like these in your job descriptions has hindered women from applying.

Additionally, only using “he/she” pronouns might stop members of the LGBTQ+ from applying to roles. So before writing “He/she must be a competitive ninja who wants to crush goals,” you might want to change around some of the wording to make the requirements more inclusive to all of your candidates - not just some of them. If not, job candidates might get a poor impression of your company culture.

Short and Sweet

When writing your job requirements, keep it short and sweet. Too many job requirements may stop people from applying. They might feel overwhelmed when they read the job description, or perhaps they won’t apply if they don’t meet every requirement.

It’s also important to remember that men will typically apply for jobs if they meet even just 60% of the requirements, but women will typically only apply if they feel they meet every single one. By having too many job requirements, you’re stopping yourself from getting more female applicants. This is especially problematic in male-dominated industries like finance and technology.

Be Mindful About Which Requirements Are Actually Requirements

At Bryq, we don’t necessarily believe that job experience or education are always the “be-all and end-all” when choosing candidates to interview. While we understand that certain roles might require a certain degree or certification, that isn’t the case across the board. Personality traits and cognitive ability are much more reliable ways to predict a candidate's performance in a role. Job requirements like “attention to detail” or “self-reliance” that you can measure through things like talent assessments might be better options and more indicative of candidate success.

When writing out your job requirements, ask yourself what is absolutely essential to the role and what would be a nice bonus for a candidate to have. By doing this, you are opening up the role to a lot of candidates who wouldn’t have applied otherwise.

Make Your Job Descriptions Perfect With Bryq

We know how hard it is to get job descriptions right. So many tiny details will impact whether or not a prospective candidate will apply for your role. It’s hard to understand what exactly needs to be said in order for them to press that “apply” button. The good news? Bryq can help!

To help you figure out exactly what you’re looking for in a candidate, Bryq has developed our AI-Powered Profile Predictor. With the help of artificial intelligence, we are able to see whether or not the language you are using in your job description actually matches the job you are trying to fill. How do we do this? Based on the language and words you’ve used in your job description. Our I-O psychologists analyzed tens of thousands of job descriptions. They also analyzed the cognitive skills and personality traits attached to them. Bryq then trained our AI system to know which qualities are most important for each job.

All you need to do on your end is copy and paste your job description in the text box provided. At the push of a button, our Profile Predictor will thoroughly analyze your job description. This allows you to see what language you might be missing to find the right candidates. It’s never been so easy to set yourself up for success!

If you’d like to try this feature out for yourself, book a demo today! They’d love to show you exactly how the Bryq intelligence system works. Happy hiring!