The job description–made to last
I look at job descriptions and at people’s CVs through the day. I assess their skills, work history, presentation and aspirations, how they compose and formulate their CV, their reflections, aspirations, ability to listen, how the articulate and market themselves, sometimes with a dollop of self awareness.. I usually (after an hour or so) understand what they want to do, and what is likely they can do.
The part that often needs work–and significant thought is the job description, the domain of my client.. Companies (composed only of people..) seldom thoroughly think through what they want in a job, and hence what they want in a person. They rewrite the same job description template, cut and paste, et voila, a new job offering, something like this:
“Bright ambitious successful high energy yet thoughtful professional able to work in teams and independently can manage motivate and lead successfully knows how to communicate and present effectively hard worker can get the job done.”
Written with sincerity, but means little (and let me add that a lot of CVs have just as many clichés, “developed and executed” the most hideous tag team on a CV..)
As every company wants the very very best, most such wording, I suppose, will stay.
But here, ladies and gentlemen, lies the irony. The role of management is to take the ordinary (and let’s not get into a discussion of what defines ordinary) and make it extraordinary. It is NOT the role of management to say (as is sometimes said to me) that they want a genius of epic proportions, a rara avis for the role. They’ll be at it forever, or the poor search consultant will.
If a hire doesn’t work, it is almost always not because of the hired person, but because the job was poorly designed, and the hiring process not thought out. And who is to blame? The hiring manager (OK, occasionally the search consultant..) and other involved parties. And who gets blamed when the new hire quits or is let go? Why, that person, of course.
Management should almost always ask: “where did we do wrong?” Instead, it is usually almost “they were over their head” or “they didn’t understand how we work” or “a bad cultural fit” or “couldn’t manage at all” etc etc. And often the new hire has done well previously.
A job must be well thought out, and designed to last. Almost any job, except the lowest rung, will change, often quickly; it’s just a fact of corporate life.
Hence, the good jobs are the challenging ones, big enough to offer scope. Not so big that it is diffuse and cannot be done by one person, nor too small that it has no challenge or growth.
That can be done without too much difficulty, with the proviso that management, HR and other interested stakeholders sit down and design each [strategic] role, the content. the wording, the qualifications, so that it can be clearly read and understood, expectations outlined, measurements shown, criteria (both functional and soft skills) culture, and growth potential.
If it doesn’t work, use it as an opportunity to think it through better the next time.
In all my years of coaching, I never yelled at a player. If a player made a mistake in a big game, my gut level response was that I must not have given him enough coaching.
–John Wooden
