Question

As an HR professional, how would you go about using a more collaborative approach in gathering information for creating a job ad?

In your opinion, what are the key components of a job ad that would attract the most qualified applicants?

What are the best collaborative HR practices for job analysis and design?

Answer 1

For every job advertisement, job description is essential and writing a job description helps to define the duties a new staff member will be responsible for the previous experience and skills they'll need what level of authority they will hold. Job description will not be completed without following details;

• Create a job title
• Writing a summary of job
• Check the employment type
• Identifying the selection criteria

With the good job description, advertisement for recruitment would be easy and understandable for the candidates. When you advertise the job, consider what type of advertising will attract the best candidates.

Options include:

• online, such as website or social media channels
• word of mouth
• headhunting
• recruitment agencies
• local newspaper job ads.

If hiring an IT professional an ad online will probably get the right peoples' attention. Head hunting involves sourcing a person has all the skills that want for your business.

For creating job advertisement, the following information should be gathered;

• Should have information about competitors
• Should know the industry
• Stand out from the crowd
• Get outside advice from employees and collegues about job and desired candidate.

Key components of a job ad that would attract the most qualified applicants

The number of job advertisements and applications are continuing to rise and are making it more difficult for companies to attract the right candidates to their vacancies. The rate of applications to job advertisements has remained higher than pre-recession figures. The number of job vacancies being posted has also increased, leading to growing competition amongst businesses to secure the very best talent.

Any job posting that promote should work to:

• Attract, interest and communicate to the right candidates
• Discourage candidates unsuitable for the role
• Portray a positive image of your organisation
• Adhere to legislation surrounding discrimination
• Provide clear instruction of what a candidate should do next.

When putting together a job post, the following features of the advertisement can attract the most suitable candidates:

Add a relevant and clear headline – the job title should be a clear description of the job function. If this is not possible, include a small introduction to explain the purpose of the position so readers have a clear understanding of what to expect.

Draw attention to your heading, strap line and main message – the majority of job advertisement should be devoted to these elements don’t be tempted to add too much additional information in the space available.

Brand up your job advertisement – if it is a recognised or reputable brand, then logo or name should appear prominently, as talented professionals often want to work for businesses of stature.

Make the text clear and easy-to-read – write efficiently, use simple language and include vocabulary used by the candidates that want to attract. Also add bullet points and bite-sized paragraphs so that there is adequate space around the text and the focus is on your words.

Involve the reader – refer to the reader as ‘you’ to draw them into the job advertisement and allow them to imagine themselves in the role.

Add any unique information – stress what makes the role or organisation unique and interesting as people often want to work for exciting and special employers.

Best collaborative HR practices for job analysis and design

Job analysis in human resource management (HRM) refers to the process of identifying and determining the duties, responsibilities, and specifications of a given job. It encompasses the collection of data required to put together a job description that will attract the right person to fill in the role. Job design is the process of deciding on the contents of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities; techniques, systems, procedures, and methods to be used in carrying out the job; and the relationships that should exist between the jobholder and his superiors, subordinates and colleagues. Following are the 3 effective job analysis methods

Interview

With this job analysis method, job analysts conduct interviews with incumbents to collect information about their tasks and how they are coping with them. Interviews can be structured and unstructured depending on your corporate culture.

Questionnaires

As the name suggests, the questionnaire job analysis method requires employees, supervisors, and managers to fill out forms, namely questionnaires. It’s one of the most widely used job analysis methods because it’s inexpensive to create and easy to distribute to numerous individuals at a faster rate. Questionnaires can have different question forms, such as open-ended questions, multiple choice, checklists or a mix of all of them.

Observation

The observation method enables job analysts to observe employees in their daily routines. The information collected through observation is extremely useful and reliable since it’s via first-hand knowledge. Observation is the only job analysis method that allows the job analyst or HR professional to directly obtain the data, whereas other job analysis methods collect data indirectly and in an orchestrated environment. When using this particular method, a job analyst observes an employee and records what they do and do not do. This helps job analysts and HR professionals reach a more reliable conclusion.

Job design is the strategic structuring of a specific job so that the employee performs the job efficiently and at the same time finds satisfaction in doing the job. Therefore, a properly designed job achieves two things simultaneously – on the one hand, improved performance, productivity, and technical efficiency of the organization while on the other hand intrinsic motivation, job-satisfaction, and improved quality of working life of the employee. The main objective of job design, which leans support on job analysis, is to integrate the wants or needs of the employee and that of the organization.There are certain factors that influence job design, or rather, that must be taken into consideration when designing a job. These include but not limited to intrinsic motivation; the characteristics of task structure; the motivating characteristics of jobs; and the job characteristics model.

Coordinating the efforts of human resources for the purpose of achieving organizational goals is at the centre of human resource management. This entails getting the right people and placing them at the right jobs. In order for the right people to be attracted and placed on the right jobs, a thorough job analysis, which involves job description and job specification, must be carried out. The prop jobs analysis will inform the management on who the ideal people for the identified and described jobs are; however, for the employee to perform the job efficiently and finds satisfaction in it, then job design , which leans support on job analysis, must be done properly. It can be concluded that job analysis (description and specification), and job design are foundational to the success or growth of any organization.