Hiring for a key role? Forget the job description

Life is full of trade-offs – recruiting is no different. While we often set out to hire a unicorn – we soon realise that the perfect person doesn’t exist and we have to settle. As with everything executive, it’s important to be very clear from the outset what you are comfortable settling on. Which of the characteristics are mission critical and which are nice to haves? 

I was working alongside an executive who was filling a couple of very critical positions. As we have seen, the people you surround yourself with in business (as in life) make all the difference in what you can accomplish and your overall job satisfaction. His core team (the roles reporting directly to him), were either too light or vacant. We were about to embark on a performance transformation. It was the highest priority to get these roles filled and right – as they would be the custodians of the changes and torch bearers moving forward. The executive assured me that he had engaged with HR and that they were working on it.

I’ve worked with great people. And, birds of a feather flock together. Looking to put my network to work, I enquired: “What profiles are you looking for?”.

The response: “I’ll send you the job descriptions.”

Houston, we have a problem. For roles of such high profile, job descriptions are about as useful as Anne Frank’s drum kit.

In high-performance environments, I have found job descriptions to be a total waste of energy. While the two-to-three page documents can be great box ticking tools for staff riddled with imposter syndrome, they do not get to the core of the role or the person you want in it. The internet is full of job descriptions. Millions. If you want one, go download one. That’s a good measure of how specific and insightful they are. 

Firstly, job descriptions encourage quantity over quality. By definition, they need to be collectively exhaustive. “Surely, if there is a missing bullet point on the page – then the staff member won’t do that task. So I better cover my arse and bullet the hell out of this!”. If that’s the kind of environment you are managing and the kind of staff you are hiring, you’ve got bigger problems than bullet points. 

Secondly: “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.[1]” – said Mark Twain and every role description author ever. The essence of the role, its priorities, and the associated key characteristics, are always absent from the (hundreds of) role descriptions I’ve ever seen. Worse than that: “Just ask HR for a role description.” In this day and age, even robots are more sophisticated than that. How is HR supposed to know the nuances of the role and profile you are looking for? Honestly, if they did, what value are you adding…?  

For that very reason, you can appreciate why my eyes glaze over when anyone uses the term “role description”.

So, what is the answer?

The answer is the response to the inevitable question: “Nice role description. Now, what are you really looking for?”

That’s the angle I took with the dear executive I just introduced you to. They paused, and sighed.

“Well, I actually really don’t need someone with technical knowledge. We are up to our ears in technical know-how. I need people who have run transformations - people who have led the charge in changing how teams operate. I don’t need the 10-year person. Hell, I don’t need the 5-year person. I need the two-year person who will roll their sleeves up, help our People Leaders figure out what to do differently and then work with them and me to iterate the changes and make them sticky and successful! If they have the technical knowledge, great. If not, that’s fine! Transformation experience is key.”.

No surprise, there was no block on the role description template for this!

This changed everything. It changed the mental picture of what we were looking for. It changed the recruiters / head-hunters we engaged and it changed their brief.

There is a formula for this. And it may come as no surprise that it follows our tried-and-tested SCR framework. Using our example above:

Situation: “We find ourselves in a time of operational change. We need to conduct an operational transformation program to re-engineer our delivery standards and business processes to update and improve our ways of working. Our leadership doesn’t have a lot of experience in this.  

Complication: Our business is a technical one. We have technical people. Technical people who like following processes and not “breaking the mould”. We are also committed to making the change significant and “sticky” – so we are looking for solid line management to help lead the charge.

Resolution: We need a seasoned transformation leader. A senior people leader with demonstrable experience in leading operational transformations involving 200 or more people, in a professional environment. An action oriented inspirational leader with good executive analytical skills.

This probably looks like a person with a professional degree, more than 10 years work experience and time spent leading a transformation in a line manager capacity. If the person has a consulting background, it is important that they have +5 years post-consulting management experience leading change. If they have worked in xxx technical industry / function – that would be distinctive but not necessary.”

What you are reading is pretty much the recruiting elevator pitch. And the more we draft and get caught up in the endless details and bullets of comprehensive role descriptions, this cohesive and insightful narrative gets lost. In a nutshell, here is the framework:

“We find ourselves in x situation and are looking for y role to really push z.

The candidate would need the usual a, b and c tickets to play but it’s really important that they bring e and f attitude – probably from experience doing p and q.

I’d rather take a person with k only, than a person with l and some k.”

Copy. Paste. Use.

Hiring a vanilla role? Fine. Ask HR, download a role description or ask Ai.

You’re an executive manager and this role is important to you, your team and your business – save time, move the needle and craft the executive role description.