The Job Advert and the First Screen: Describe the Real Job

Monday, 09:15, at Meridian Parts. Sam has fifty-two applications for a technician post on his four-person desk and has just finished reading them. Three are worth a call. The advert had asked for "a dynamic self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced environment" and "excellent communication skills". It had also asked for a minimum of five years' experience and fourteen named technologies. It had described the role as "an exciting opportunity to join a high-performing team". It had been assembled from a template, two older adverts and a paragraph the marketing department had supplied. Nobody who read it could have told you what the job was. Forty-nine people applied anyway, because forty-nine people apply to anything. The three Sam wanted to call had all applied in spite of the advert, not because of it. He phoned the first one, and she asked what the job actually involved. Sam described it for ten minutes, and she said: "Why didn't you just write that down?"

A job advert is the first message a desk sends to the person it hopes to hire. And the first screen is the short call, twenty minutes or so, that decides whether a full interview is worth a day of both sides' time. Together they decide who turns up to the exercises. A desk that gets them wrong spends its interview week on the wrong people and never finds out who it missed. This article is part of our Hiring Support Staff series. And it is about writing down what Sam said on the phone, before the phone rings.

It covers the honest advert and what it contains, then the requirements list and the one that scares the right people off. Next come stating the pay range in principle, what the advert must never say, and where the advert goes and who actually reads it. Then we cover the first screen call and its five questions, and the prompt and respectful rejection. We finish with a short war story and the advert outline to copy.

The Advert Describes the Job, Not the Dream

An honest advert describes a weekday. It says how many people are on the desk and who the hire reports to. It says roughly how many tickets arrive in a week and by which routes: web form, e-mail, chat, phone, the person who appears at the desk. It names the three commonest kinds of ticket and says whether there is on-call and what the pattern is. It says what the hours are and where the work happens, and what the hire will learn in the first year. A candidate who reads it should be able to picture ten o'clock on a Tuesday. If they cannot, the advert has described a dream, and dreams get fifty-two applications from people who are picturing something else.

Get the numbers from the desk, not from memory. The weekly ticket count is the single most useful fact in the advert, and most leads guess it low. The way to count it properly is in Counting Tickets Properly. If you run QuerySolv, the standard volume report gives the figure without anyone counting by hand. The honest number is usually a range across a few months rather than a single week. Write the range. "Between ninety and a hundred and thirty tickets a week, about half by e-mail, a third through the web form, and the rest by chat or in person" tells a candidate more than any adjective.

Say the awkward things too. If the desk takes walk-ups and the hire will be interrupted a dozen times a day, say so. The cost of that interruption pattern is set out in Why Walk-Ups Happen and What They Cost. The candidate deserves to know they are walking into it. If there is a rota for evenings, describe it. In that case, link the hire's expectations to the reality described in After-Hours and On-Call Support rather than to a template line. If the desk supports a warehouse that starts at six, say that. An advert that hides the awkward parts hires someone for a job that does not exist, and the war story below is what happens next.

Requirements: Must, Should, and the List That Scares People Off

The requirements section is where most adverts lose the people they wanted. Fourteen named technologies, five years' experience and "excellent communication skills" read, to a strong candidate, as a list of fourteen chances to be disqualified. Strong candidates are exactly the people who take requirements literally. The weaker ones apply anyway. The list therefore filters out the careful and lets through the careless, which is the opposite of its purpose. It does so before anyone on the desk has seen a name.

Replace the list with three short blocks. The first is what the hire must show, in plain words. It is the five traits from What to Screen For in a Support Hire, written as sentences a person could recognise themselves in. One example is "you ask what changed before you change anything". Another is "you can write to someone who is upset and they will understand you and feel heard". Another is "you say 'I don't know yet' and then find out". The second is the hard facts without which the job cannot be done. They are few and come from HR: the hours, the location, and any genuinely unavoidable requirement of the role. The third is nice-to-have, clearly labelled as such, where a tool name or a certification may sit as a tie-breaker and never as a gate.

Leave the years out. "Five years' experience" is a number standing in for a trait, as the screening article explains. In an advert it does one extra piece of damage. It tells the career changer with exactly the aptitude you need that the door is shut. If the desk genuinely cannot train and needs someone who has carried a queue before, say that: "you have worked a support queue before, because this desk is small and cannot spend the hours teaching the basics". That sentence is honest, it is about the job, and it lets the candidate decide. A number lets nobody decide anything. It just closes the door quietly and does not say who it closed it on.

Saying the Pay Range

State the pay range in the advert. The figures come from HR and the budget, and they vary by place and by contract. And this article has nothing to say about what they should be; but the principle is simple and worth stating plainly. A candidate is about to give the desk an evening to apply, a lunchtime for the screen and a day for the interview. And they are entitled to know, before they spend any of it, whether the job pays within the range they can accept. "Competitive" is not a range. It is a word that means the organisation knows the number and has decided the candidate should not.

The range is also what makes the offer fair between candidates. When nobody knows the range, the final figure is set by negotiation. Negotiation rewards whoever is most comfortable asking. That is not a trait on the screening sheet and should not be paid for as if it were. Two people hired into the same role in the same month with the same scores should land in the same part of the range for the same reasons. A published range is the only mechanism I know of that reliably produces that result. The decision about where in the range a particular offer sits belongs to HR and the hiring manager together, in The Offer, the Start Date and the First Week. The advert's job is only to say what the range is.

If your organisation's rules do not allow the range to be published, ask why. In that case, ask whether it can at least be stated at the first screen. That way, nobody arrives at an interview to discover the job pays less than their current one. The screen call is the last moment the information is cheap to share. After the interview it is a disappointment with a day's travel attached.

What the Advert Must Not Say

Nothing in the advert may describe, ask about or hint at anything a person cannot change or that a fair employer would not ask about. That sentence sounds like a rule you would never break, and most adverts break it in code rather than in plain words. Examples are "young and energetic", "digital native", "recent graduate", "would suit someone starting out", "culture fit", and "work hard, play hard". Each of those describes a kind of person rather than a kind of work. Each tells a group of perfectly good candidates that the desk has already decided it does not mean them. Read every adjective in the advert and ask what work it describes. If the answer is "none", it is describing a person, and it goes.

HR owns the rules about what may be said and asked, and the rules vary by place. The advert is shown to them before it is posted, every time, and their corrections are made without argument. This article owns the craft of writing an advert that attracts the right people and tells them the truth. And the two are the same project. An advert that describes work in plain words, with a range and an honest weekday, does not need coded adjectives. It has already said what it means. The adjectives were only ever there to fill the space where the description should have been.

There is a quick test for any sentence you are unsure of: would you be comfortable reading it aloud to the candidate it excludes? "You have carried a support queue before" can be read aloud to a career changer, with a reason, and they will understand it. "Would suit a recent graduate" cannot be read aloud to anyone at all, which is how you know what it is for.

Where the Advert Goes and Who Reads It

Post the advert inside the organisation first, and give it a week there. The best hire a desk ever makes is often already in the building. It might be the person in finance who everyone asks about the spreadsheet. It might be the receptionist who has quietly been first line for the whole ground floor, or the warehouse supervisor who fixed the scanner. They know the organisation, they know the users, and they have been doing half the job unpaid. The ladder that starts with them is described in What the Ladder Looks Like. A week inside costs nothing and sometimes saves the whole round.

Then post it where the people you want actually read. Nobody can tell you where that is for your town and your trade. This article will not name places, because they change. The reliable method is to ask your best technician where they found their job and start there. Add the organisation's own careers page, the local college's careers office if you would take a career changer, and your own team's networks. A technician who says "my desk is hiring and it's a good desk" is worth more than any posting. Write a line from the desk lead into the advert, in the first person. It should say what the desk is proud of and what it is working on. It is the only line most candidates will remember.

Ask for a covering letter and say that it will be read as a writing sample. That one sentence does two things. It tells candidates the desk cares about writing, which the ones who can write will like. It makes the letter a fair piece of evidence, because everyone was told what it was for. Say what the process is and how long it takes, and name the person to ask. Include whatever line about adjustments HR provides, in their words. A candidate who knows there are exercises, knows the dates and knows who to e-mail is a candidate who turns up prepared. And a prepared candidate is the one you can actually measure.

The First Screen Call

The first screen is a twenty-minute call, by phone or video, with every candidate whose application met the sheet. It is done by the desk lead or a senior technician, and is the same for each candidate. Its purpose is narrow. Confirm the hard facts both ways, and describe the real job so the candidate can withdraw cheaply if it is not for them. Hear how the candidate talks about a problem, and decide whether the interview day is worth both sides' time. It is not an interview. Nobody is scored on anything deeper than yes, maybe or no against the five traits, with a one-line reason. The scoring is done the same way for everyone on the same sheet.

Ask the same five questions in the same order. They are deliberately plain, and they are written so that a career changer and a ten-year veteran can both answer them from their own experience.

• "Tell me about a time you fixed a problem for someone who was not technical. What did you do, and what did you say to them?"
• "From the advert, what do you think an ordinary Tuesday on this desk looks like? What would you want to ask us about it?"
• "A ticket arrives that just says 'it's broken'. Talk me through your first ten minutes."
• "The practical parts: the hours, the location, the start date and the on-call pattern we described. Does any of that not work for you?"
• "What would you need from us to do this job well?"

The first question shows ownership and clear speech. The second shows whether they read the advert and whether they are curious. A candidate with no questions about the desk is a candidate who has not pictured it. The third is a tiny walk-through and shows questions-before-actions. The fourth is the hard facts. And a "no" here is a kind outcome for everyone, delivered twenty minutes in rather than after a day of interviews. The fifth tells you what kind of colleague they will be and, often, what their last desk failed to give them. Spend the last five minutes answering their questions honestly, including the awkward ones, and tell them when they will hear and by what route. Then write the sheet before the next call, because by the fourth call of the morning the first one has become a pleasant blur.

Rejecting Promptly and Respectfully

Every applicant hears the outcome, within a week of the decision, including the ones who were never called. Silence is the commonest way desks treat candidates and the one candidates remember longest. The people you did not hire this time are the people who will apply next time or recommend the desk to a friend. They may sit on the other side of a table from you in five years. Prompt, kind and brief is the standard, and it costs about four minutes per candidate. That is less time than the desk spends reading one of their applications.

The message says thank you, says no plainly, and says one true thing if you can. Do not invent a reason and do not say "we had a very strong field" unless it is the truth. Where you can offer one job-related observation from the sheet, offer it, in a sentence. For example: "the written exercise is where we felt the gap; the replies we are looking for say what happens next and when". HR will have guidance on what feedback the organisation gives and how. Follow it, because feedback is where a kind intention most easily becomes a sentence you cannot defend. For the near-miss, the candidate who scored well and lost to someone who scored better, say so. Ask that candidate whether they would like to be told when the desk next hires. Most say yes. Some become the next hire without an advert at all.

The short message below is the one I use for candidates who were screened or interviewed. It is plain, and that is the point; the tone described in Writing Like a Person, Not a Policy applies to candidates exactly as it applies to requesters.

Subject: Your application for ______________

Dear ______________,

Thank you for applying for the ______________ post and for the time you gave
us on ________. We have decided not to take your application further.

[One true, job-related observation from the sheet, if we can offer one.]

[For the near-miss:] You were close, and we would like to tell you when the
desk next hires. Reply to this message if you would like us to, and we will
keep your details for that purpose only.

Thank you again, and good luck with your search.

______________
Desk lead, ______________

A Short War Story: The Advert That Said No Weekends at Northgate Retail

At Northgate Retail, a chain of twenty stores supported by a three-person desk, the lead, Jess, reused the previous advert because it had worked before. The advert said "no weekends, no on-call", which had been true when it was written. It had stopped being true when the desk took on Saturday store openings one week in three. Ben applied for the job the advert described, scored well on every exercise, and accepted. He found out about the Saturdays from the rota pinned beside the kettle on his second day. He stayed six weeks, worked two Saturdays with visible unhappiness, and resigned in writing with a copy of the advert attached, which was fair of him. Jess covered the Saturdays herself for the eight weeks it took to run the round again. The runner-up from the first round had taken another job in the meantime. The second advert, which described the Saturdays in its third paragraph, drew half as many applications and three strong candidates. One of those was still on the desk four years later. An advert that describes a job nobody has will hire someone for it, and they will leave the moment they find the real one.

The Advert Outline

The outline below is one page, written by the desk lead and reviewed by HR before posting. It is filled in from the desk's own numbers rather than from the last advert. Every bracket is a prompt for a plain sentence, not a heading to keep. The pay range line is filled in by HR; the adjustments line is in HR's words; everything else is yours. And the test of each line is whether a candidate reading it could picture ten o'clock on a Tuesday.

THE ADVERT OUTLINE — ONE PAGE, REVIEWED BY HR BEFORE POSTING
Post title (the job, plainly): ______________________________
Reports to: ______________   Desk size: ______   Reviewed by HR on: ________

THE DESK
  Who we support: ________ people across ________ (sites, departments, hours of business)
  Hours: ______________   Location and any remote days: ______________
  On-call or weekend pattern, honestly stated: ______________________________

AN ORDINARY WEEK
  Tickets a week (a range, from the reports): ______ to ______
  How they arrive (web form / e-mail / chat / phone / in person, roughly): ____________
  The three commonest kinds of ticket: ______________, ______________, ______________
  The awkward parts (walk-ups, early starts, the warehouse, the rota): ______________

WHAT YOU WILL DO
  ______________________________________________________________________
  ______________________________________________________________________

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR (traits, in plain sentences)
  You ask what changed before you change anything.
  You can write to someone who is upset so that they understand you and feel heard.
  You stay steady after a hard call and take the next one well.
  You treat a ticket as yours until someone else has accepted it.
  You say "I don't know yet", and then you find out.

HARD FACTS (from HR; the job cannot be done without them)
  ______________________________   ______________________________

NICE TO HAVE (a tie-breaker, never a gate)
  ______________________________   ______________________________

WHAT WE OFFER
  Pay range (from HR): ______________   Training plan in the first quarter: ____________
  Where this role can lead: ______________________________

A LINE FROM THE DESK LEAD (first person: what the desk is proud of and what it is fixing)
  ______________________________________________________________________

HOW TO APPLY
  Send a CV and a covering letter; we read the letter as a writing sample.
  Process: a twenty-minute call, then an interview with four short exercises
  (a written reply, a talk-through, a plain explanation, a prioritisation card).
  Dates: ______________   Questions to: ______________ (name, address)
  Adjustments (HR's wording): ______________________________________________

Sam rewrote the Meridian advert that afternoon from the outline, with the range in and the warehouse's six o'clock start in the second paragraph. His own line at the bottom said the desk had halved its reopen count in a year and wanted someone to help with the next half. It drew nineteen applications. Eleven of them were worth a call, which is eight more than fifty-two had produced. The candidate who had asked why he did not just write it down applied again and read the advert. She said on the screen call that it sounded like a job she could picture. It was. She has it.

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