Tips for Writing a Compelling Job Description

Before we interview candidates, we have to get top talent in the marketplace interested and excited enough to apply. We have found that one of the best ways to do this is with a well-crafted job description. Here are some of the things we do to ensure we produce elite hires for our clients.

Known What You Want (Sharpen Your Focus)It is important that we focus our job description on capturing a prospective employees’ attention and interest, and that we have a clear vision of the type of person we want to hire. For example, we may be looking for a marketing guru to help us take our business to the next level. In this case, we would look for someone who understands the potential of the various marketing levers available and knows, or is interested in learning, how to use them. We would cater to this type of person when writing our job description, as this is quite often the only opportunity to “market” a role to a target audience.

Know What THEY WantBefore we can set out to create a job description that will attract top talent, it’s important for us to understand the things our client’s target demographic view as important. Job traits like frequent travel might seem great to young professionals who aren’t tied down, but they could be a deterrent to senior executives who value spending time at home with the family. We figure out what it is the target candidates value, and then we highlight the ones that our client offers.

Answer The “Why” (Benefits vs. Features)Many job descriptions simply list the duties and responsibilities of the position, followed by a list of skills or experiences the role requires. Since the opportunity we are describing also offers unique benefits to job seekers—like a chance to work with the agency’s most famous clients or get in on the ground floor of a new client/agency relationship—we ensure the job description communicates them. When a person asks themselves “Why do I want to work here?”, we give them the answer to that question.

Sell Your CompanyWhatever position we are recruiting for probably exists in other companies. While it’s important to communicate specifics about the role itself, it’s also critical to convey information about our client’s company. A great candidate is not just applying for an opportunity; they’re joining what they hope is an innovative team. There are a lot of great things about our clients that employees value, and we do our best to explain how the job will help the candidate achieve their objectives and fast-track their marketing career.

Make It InspirationalJob descriptions shouldn’t just be informational… they should be inspirational! When it comes to actually writing the job description, we have found that there are a few important points to consider. Here is what we do to make our job description stand out:

• We write job descriptions in a natural voice that conveys some of the personality of our client’s companies.
• We avoid clichés and keep the business jargon to a minimum.
• We ensure the most appealing aspects of the job are highlighted and stand out.
• When we’re done, we read it back to ourselves. We also put ourselves in the reader’s shoes and ask: “Would I be excited about this opportunity?”

Finding a great hire in today’s viral network can be a daunting task, but with the right preparation and delivery, it can net some fantastic employees.

Unleashed Your Unique and Special Proposition (USP)

 Your Unique and Special Proposition (USP)

A few points on the definition:

1. The USP must be very specific. E.g. “Head & Shoulders will remove your dandruff”, not “Head & Shoulders is an excellent shampoo”.
2. Your competitors cannot or will not offer it. This is why it’s no good saying “I’m talented, creative and hardworking” on your resume, or “We provide outstanding service” on your website. Chances are your competitors are not writing “I’m clueless, devoid of imagination and lazy” on resumes, or “We never answer the phone” on their websites.
3. Don’t worry about reaching ‘mass millions’. Rosser was writing in the golden age of mass marketing. These days, according to Kevin Kelly, a creator only needs 1,000 true fans to make a living, which is a bit more manageable.

Now I know a lot of creative people have a hard time with marketing language like ‘brand’ and ‘target market’ and so on. As an introverted poet, I can relate. But sometimes in the course of this course, I’m going to have to call a spade a spade, or in this case a USP a USP.

How do you develop your USP

Here’s how!
I’m a fan of Mark McGuiness’s worksheet for developing yours (and his work in general). So I highly recommend you take a look at his great way to break it down. I’ll delve into my answers below.
Mark suggests getting at least two answers to all of the questions below.
Firstly, answer them yourself. Secondly, get someone who knows you and your work well to answer them –your customers, colleagues or friends. That’s where you come in.
This is because a USP is about other people’s perceptions of you. What makes you remarkable in their eyes may not be obvious to you. I’m going to keep my answers purposefully short because yours are more important.

1. What are you better at than anyone else?

Being open to change and learning new things. I like to think I’m someone who lives a life of adventure, constantly challenging myself. My friends say I’m a motivating type and a connector.

2. What do you enjoy doing the most?

The art of entrepreneurship, travelling the world, meeting new friends who I inspire or am inspired by, and playing Ultimate Frisbee (and sports in general).

3. What do (or could) you provide that no one else is providing?

Show you how to run your business, if you choose to, from anywhere in the world by using efficient systems, online tools and social media to streamline your work and free up time to do other fun things.

4. What annoys people the most about your industry?

A lot of people talking the talk but not walking the walk of a life of personal freedom. Tim Ferris does not work a 4 hour work week nor would he want to. I’m not interested in never working. I love what I do.
If I won the lottery tomorrow it would not make me happier because I am doing exactly what I want to be doing. That’s where I want to help other people. To get to their ultimate place of happiness and personal freedom.

5. What is remarkable about you?

I believe I’m remarkable for having an eternally optimistic love of life that sees me through.
(You can read what others say about me on the ‘Testimonials Wall’, it reminds me why I do what I do to touch the lives of others – and gives them a shout out too. Thank you all).

6. Do you have an unusual combination of elements?

I’m an integrated marketer who loves new technology and sharing how to use it effectively with others. I am a free spirit with a strategic business mind.

7. Do you have a big personality?

I’m not Gary Vaynerchuk. But I have a big sense of adventure, a Kiwi accent, a cheeky sense of humour and the ability to laugh at myself. I just wish I could project my voice more!

8. Write a USP statement

This acts reminder of what makes you distinctive and here’s the format to follow:
I am unique and different because I provide [USP] which no one else in my field provides. No one else can or will provide this because [insert reason].
So. This is where YOU get to step up and tell me what you think my USP is. Go ahead don’t be shy. Please someone…;)

31 Innovation Questions (and Answers) To Kick Off the New Year

1. How do you define innovation? Something different that has impact.
2. What are different types of innovation? Innovation is more than whiz-bang technology; consider different strategic intents (e.g., create a new category, extend current business) or innovation mechanisms (e.g., new product, distribution channel, marketing approach).
3. How do I spot opportunities for innovation? Go to the source: the customer you hope to target.
4. Which customers should I target? Look beyond your best customers to those who face a constraint that inhibits their ability to solve the problems they face in their life.
5. What should I look for? As Drucker said, "the customer rarely buys what the business thinks it sells him;" look for a job-to-be-done, an important problem that is not adequately solved by current solutions.
6. How should I look? Start with deep ethnographic research; avoid focus groups!
7. How do I come up with an idea? Remember the Picasso line "good artists copy, great artists steal;" seek to borrow ideas from other industries or geographies.
8. What is disruptive innovation? An innovation that transforms a market or creates a new one through simplicity, convenience, affordability or accessibility.
9. What is the best way to disrupt a market? Embrace the power of trade offs. Seek to be just "good enough" along historical performance dimensions but introduce new benefits related to simplicity or affordability.
10. What does "good enough" mean? Performance above a minimum threshold to adequately solve a customer's job to be done; sacrificing performance along traditional dimensions can open up new avenues to innovate.
11. What is a business model (and how do I innovate one)? How a company creates, captures, and delivers value; codifying the current business model is the critical first step of business model innovation.
12. How can I "love the low end"? Build a business model designed around the low-end customer's job-to-be-done.
13. How do I know if my idea is good? Let patterns guide and actions decide; remember Scott Cook's advice that "for every failure we had we had spreadsheets that looked awesome."
14. How can I learn more about my idea? Design and execute "high return on investment" experiments to address critical unknowns.
15. How can I get other people behind my idea? Bring the idea to life through visuals and customer testimonials.
16. How long does it take new businesses to scale? Almost always longer than initial projections; be patient for growth and impatient for profits.
17. Why is innovation so important? The "new normal" of constant change requires mastering perpetual transformation.
18. Why is innovation so hard? Most organizations are designed to execute, not to innovate.
19. Who are your influences? Academics like Clayton Christensen and Vijay Govindarajan, leading-edge innovative companies like Procter & Gamble and Cisco Systems, and thoughtful writers like Michael Mauboussin and Bill James.
20. How do I encourage innovation in my organization? Stop punishing anything that smells like failure, recognizing that failure is often a critical part of the innovation process.
21. What is "the sucking sound of the core?" The pull of the core business and business model that subtly influences new ideas so they resemble what the organization has done before.
22. What is an innovation "safe space"? An organizational mechanism that protects innovators from the sucking sounds of the core.
23. How should I form and manage innovation teams? Keep deadlines tight and decision makers focused.
24. What is in a good innovation strategy? Overall goals, a target portfolio for innovation efforts, a mechanism to allocate resources to achieve that portfolio, and clearly defined goals and boundaries for innovation.
25. What is the best way to manage an innovation portfolio? Make sure you correctly capture current activities and measure and manage different kinds of innovations in different ways.
26. What does 'prudent pruning' mean? Recognizing that destruction is often a critical component of creation.
27. What role should senior executives play in innovation? A big one.
28. How can I personally become a better innovator? Practice - innovation is a skill that can be mastered.
29. How can I find more resources for innovation? Shut down "zombie projects" that are a drain on corporate resources.
30. How can I more quickly turn good ideas into good businesses? Remember what Edison said - genius is "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration;" get ready to sweat.
31. Has anyone built the ability to innovate at scale? An increasing number of companies, such as Google, Apple, Procter & Gamble, Amazon.com, Cisco Systems, Godrej & Boyce and General Electric.

Go for Change! Go for Social Entrepreneurship!

Social entrepreneurship is, fundamentally, about using a market-driven business model to address key social and environmental issues. It is an emerging field with diverse and shifting interpretations.

Today, nonprofits are increasingly finding that social entrepreneurship offers the tools and

techniques needed to build capacity and to achieve and maintain long-term financial stability

during times where there are changes in the economic environment. Social entrepreneurship

is a strategic approach that encourages nonprofit corporations to both diversify revenue sources and develop new revenue-generating activities. Through social entrepreneurship, nonprofits across the country are developing new, innovative strategies for meeting their missions by adopting effective business practices that are the backbone of traditional business principles. Foundations that recognize the value of the trend are offering specialized grant and loan funds targeted at enterprise-oriented activities. Nonprofits practicing social entrepreneurship use business-sector disciplines and models within the core mission or program of the organization. For today’s nonprofit executive, the management challenge is to allocate resources strategically and make those resources as productive as possible. Executives find they are able to meet their missions through many different strategies—often using new financial and marketing models—than in the past. Social entrepreneurship can mean starting new endeavors or bringing new fiscal or managerial disciplines to old endeavors.

Social entrepreneurship helps nonprofits to:

● Increase efficiency in all areas

● Conduct rigorous financial planning as a core activity— combining resource development with financial planning strategies

● Develop creative organizational structures and alliances

● Think strategically about competition and collaboration

● Evaluate the need for changes in the nature and skills of internal staff

● Review the need for changes in the nature and skills of the board of directors

● Identify new earned income opportunities that are aligned with mission

● Redefine mission in the context of market research

Why Social Enterprise matters? 

• Social enterprise matters because it is focused on making positive change at a time when we desperately need it. Social enterprise is one important tool, among many, that is actively and directly making our world a better place.

• Social enterprise is more responsive. Social enterprise doesn't rely on the shifting priorities of government and major foundations; it gets on with making the change that is needed within a community and (sometimes) grows to affect whole cities, countries, and regions.

• Social enterprise is scalable. Like all businesses, social enterprise has, with investment and sales revenue, the ability to grow to meet needs and priorities of the communities it serves, as opposed to traditional nonprofit programs, which are often limited to the funds available from government and philanthropic funders.

• Social enterprise actively engages stakeholders. Social enterprise gives the people it helps a direct voice in the operation of the business - as owners, employees and paying customers.

Language of Social Entrepreneurship

If corporate leaders and their acolytes are

not slaves to some meritorious social 

purpose, they run the risk of being 

enslaved by their own ignoble appetites.

That's not some radical preacher or ranting Marxist, that's not even Bob Dylan in his early electric phase -- it's Gary Hamel, business consultant and author of "The Future of Management,"

Hamel titled his post The Hole in the Soul of Business --and proposed that "humanizing the language and practice of management is a business imperative (as well as a moral duty)".

What was that all about? I'd say them's fightin' words!

Apparently, polls Hamel had read suggested that "only 20% of employees are truly engaged in their work -- heart and soul", and that depressed him. It depressed him to the point where he thought about it creatively, and came up with a simple experiment.

He took a look at corporate annual reports, mission statements, and CEOs blog posts, and found plenty of talk about "superiority, advantage, leadership, differentiation, value, focus, discipline, accountability, and efficiency" – but not much mention of "beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor". Which he guessed were the values that people like Michelangelo, Galileo, Jefferson, and Gandhi were passionate about.

So, he thought, no wonder so many people in the workplace aren't terribly enthused about their work… Here are some more of his thoughts on the subject:

There was a time when Disney was in the joy business. … Apple is in the beauty business. … There are many within Google who believe their company is in the wisdom business.

John Mackey, the co-founder of Whole Foods Markets, once remarked that he wanted to build a company based on love instead of fear.

A gut-level commitment to building an organization infused with the spirit of charity is far more radical and weird than it might appear.

Given all this, why is the language of business so sterile, so uninspiring and so relentlessly banal? Is it because business is the province of engineers and economists rather than artists and theologians? 


Is it because the emphasis on rationality and pragmatism squashes idealism? I’m not sure. But I know this -- customers, investors, taxpayers and policymakers believe there’s a hole in the soul of 
business.

If Gary Hamel is right – and reading his piece, I have to say I found myself nodding and grinning a lot – there are really three things we can do.

We can model ourselves on Galileo or Gandhi and get out of the business of business altogether, we can find a business with heart, or we can build one. Social entrepreneurs, I imagine, will mostly favor the third option.

But let's think about this business of language, too. Let's ask some questions. Here are some that Hamel himself proposes:

• Why are words like "love", "devotion" and "honor" so seldom heard within the halls of corporate-dom?
• What values are in the driver’s seat?
• Why are the ideals that matter most to human beings the ones that are most notably absent in managerial discourse?
• Why do you believe the language of beauty, love, justice and service is so notably absent in the corporate realm? And what would you do to remedy that fact?

And here are some questions of my own, that Hamel's piece sparked in me:

• What about our own language, as social entrepreneurs?
• Does social enterprise already offer a business language that's expressive of care and concern?
• Come to that, does the word "social" really say what we want it to say?

Words matter – I think that's part of the issue that Hamel is trying to bring to our attention. But there are even bigger questions lurking behind those ones, I think -- and I'm inviting you to think about them out loud with me over the course of this event…

• Why and when did work get so bland, so detached from our more profound values?
• As social entrepreneurs, are we still a minority interest swimming against the tide – or the new tide just coming in, bringing those values back? ..hmm..

We are not only writers, We Are Designers of our Lives!

First off, credit due where credit is due. This journal was inspired by something I read in a Writers Digest Magazine. The Author Fred White discussed how to bring out your inner inspirations for writing, and I thought the same could apply to any art form.

The bottom point of his article was: Writers (Artists as well) don't wait to be inspired. It is possible to draw without inspiration. It's also possible to draw without creativity. 

My take: You can have amazing drawing skills and still not be very creative. But where is the fun in that? Face it, creativity and motivation are like chocolate and milk, separated they are neat, but together they make a cup of awesome. So bottom line is, it's worth it to try and be more creative when doing artwork.

Chapter 1: Inspiration: Your friend or enemy? 

Show of hands, who here got into drawing because of another person’s work? I know I did. Inspiration can be a wonderful, uplifting thing that motivates you to draw. When you lack motivation to draw, turn to your favorite artists! They can give you some amazing focus. What aspects do you like about their work? Their style? Content? Coloring?

But there can be a down side to that. Too much inspiration will cause you to shadow them. Sure, no one person can own a style, but do you really want to mimic them, or be your own person? Another tip is to talk to the artist you admire. The worst thing they will do is ignore you. I get ignored a lot. But sometimes they talk to me. You can talk to them about where they get inspiration, to try and help get YOU on the right creative path. 


Chapter 2: Senses and your creativity. 

As an artist, the most important sense to you is your sight (at least most of the time). But don’t just get stuck on that one sense! You have four other senses that can help you develop your creativity. Music is probably the next largest inspiration. Anyone else imagine when they listen to music? Anyone else picture their characters in some cheesy music video? In a cartoon? Doing epic things? Yes, music can dance a beautiful waltz with your mind. But don’t ignore those images you see when you listen to music! Write them down, what you see, how you feel, and try to portray them in your pictures. Music is drawing those images, thoughts, feelings, from a part of your mind that you can’t access easily without incentive. Movies and books can also be a great inspiration. I bet a few of you watch movies and get some awesome ideas pushing their way into your mind as you watch them. 


Chapter 3: When dreams become reality. 

Do you ever lie in bed at night, and ideas just seem to pop into your head? More so than during the day? Especially if you’ve been drawing/writing? There is a reason for that. You have many different levels of conscious thought. Basically, right now you are thinking of things that you don’t even know you are thinking of. Oh yes! Just like Music also helps release these thoughts, as mentioned above, resting the mind can draw them out as well. 

Meditation: freeing your mind from thought helps those dormant creative ideas to break lose. No, meditation doesn’t mean sitting in the middle of the floor cross-legged and chanting. It just means concentrating on something you wouldn’t normally concentrate on. If you push away all the common thoughts: TV, what you have to buy at the store, work, friends, future projects, you clear your mind for thoughts that might not be as pressing. But it’s in those thoughts that you draw out past events or experiences, images or ideas that got pushed into the back of your mind that might inspire you. The way a character looks, an idea for composition.

What you need to do now is build on those thoughts. The more creative ideas you get on paper, the more your creativity will grow, making NEW ideas bloom! 


Chapter 4: Who, what, when, where, why? HOW??! 


If you have original characters, I bet you have some kind of special connection to them. Play out their life in your head. Sit down and picture YOU are your character. Where do they live? What hobbies do they have? What conflicts do they share? How would your character react to everyday problems you face? Refer back to Chapter 2, get inside their head, what they smell, feel, see... do they live in a fantasy world? What makes it so different from our world? Scribble all this down. Try looking at things in OUR world and give them a twist. 

Let’s do a simple test: how does your character get around? No, not in a sexual way, I mean transportation. Dirty, dirty minds you people have. 

In the real world, people where I live drive cars.

They do not have cars in my character’s world.

So how do they get around? In a fantasy world, many people might say “my character flies around on a dragon. That’s good, but let’s try something different. Giant wolves? Nah. How about bugs? 

Yeah! 

Giant centipedes, now that’s fun. But let’s draw on a little saddle for them. And let’s research different bugs and combine different elements of several bugs to make new species! How would this affect the streets where my characters live? Would they have to wear special clothing if some bugs were slimy? What about flying bugs, would the rider’s outfits change to compensate for wind? What if the bugs are intelligent? Do my characters hire the bugs for a price? 

So, taking one idea and developing it snaps your creativity into action. 

My most favorite thing to do is look up many different species and try to combine their anatomy to make a unique character. 

Environments can be done in the same way.

RESEARCH is the key to character, environment, etc. development. Who, what, when, where, why. Use what you got! Use what you know. 

The world is a beautiful place, you just have to know where to look. With the internet it makes it all the more easy. 

Chapter 5: stick to it. 

I like fantasy art, so I mostly do fantasy art. It’s good to have variety, but when you’re a growing artist it’s also good to focus on something, to build up one idea enough that creativity comes naturally and your world fits together without feeling awkward. I am still trying to develop worlds, and I find focus is helping, but I have a loooong way to go. I often find myself creatively constipated. 

Chapter 6: Resources for getting that idea on paper. 

I wanted to add another little section about how you can get those ideas down onto paper. Obviously, the more you practice, the better you’ll be at making the idea you see in your head transfer onto paper. But here are some tips that might help:

Don’t just draw one picture. Do several sketches, and take the picture that best resembles what you see in your mind. Do these sketches quickly: don’t get hung up on detail. Jot down notes while the image is fresh. 

Most people are stuck on line art, but that’s only a small part of the picture. When you get an idea for an image, be sure to stop and think about WHY that picture appeals to you. Is it your idea for composition? Is it the colors? The design? The pose? Perspective? Don’t get stuck on just one aspect of the picture. 

When you have those idea, make them GROW. Start some research looked up poses/clothing/ anything that might bring you closer to your goal. There are TONS of online resources to make this possible, many for free.