You're running a growing company and a new bottleneck has formed. Some responsibilities that were manageable and part of someone's role are now taking over their entire day. They're starting to work longer hours, and they're overwhelmed.
Congratulations! A new job has just been created.
You've got a title defined, and a loose list of responsibilities. What's next?
- Create a doc and add the following headings to it:
- "High-level description"
- "What you'll do"
- "What we're looking for"
- Search LinkedIn for 20 job postings with the title you defined.
- Copy/paste the relevant sections from each of the 20 job postings under their respective header in the new doc you created. By the end you should have:
- 20 high level descriptions
- A huge list of key responsibilities
- A huge list of what you're looking for
- Put the copy of just the high-level descriptions into a word cloud generator. This will surface the most consistent themes across this role (i.e. 'strategic', 'complex', 'logistics', etc.).
- Pull out sentence fragments that resonate with you from the 20 descriptions to craft your own authentic role description.
- Comb through the list of key responsibilities and delete any that aren't relevant.
- Same in the "What we're looking for" section.
- With what's left, continue to keep/kill/combine until you've got ~10 items defined in each.
- You should end with a cohesive job description with 10 key responsibilities and 10 traits you're looking for. A perfect job listing.
- Post the listing!
- Search for people on LinkedIn with the same title. Send them a message asking for advice on how to set the right expectations for the role, or tell them you're hiring for this role and aren't sure how to find the ideal candidate because the role is a bit ambiguous (it formed organically, after all). The best people aren't looking. The best people will be happy to share their time. The best people will raise their hand and want to join if what you're telling them is compelling.
You've now established your candidate pool to interview from. From this list you'll narrow it down to finalists, offers, and if you're lucky, a new member of your team.