How To Write A Job Posting: The Plate Test
Have you ever worked with a hiring manager that knows everything about how to write a job posting? Yeah, me too. They attend intake meetings with this air of confidence that says, “I’m ready. I’m prepared.”
Then, they pull out the old job posting and start to read it to me. I know I make this face every time it happens, whether I mean to or not. I have no poker face.
While I adore hiring managers for the intel they can offer, being a manager or reading a job description copied and pasted from 6 competitors does not qualify you to create job postings. To be clear, copying other people’s content is *never* step 1 of creating anything.
The challenge here is that the hiring managers genuinely believe they are the in-house experts on all things for their requisition, including the job posting. It often creates a weird tension of expertise between hiring managers and recruiters. Recruiters are supposed to be the hiring experts. In theory, that would include creating hiring materials like a job posting.
Here’s the catch. Most recruiters aren’t taught to write a job posting. How can they become experts?
Shameless Self Promotion: Take this course.
The Plate Test: Write A Job posting With Skill Stories
First and foremost, we need trust. Secondly? Training for recruiters and hiring managers on how we do this better. By showing hiring managers how great job postings are made, we’re subconsciously teaching them to trust and believe in their team’s expertise.
It’s fascinating to hear how different the follow-up questions are for hiring managers. While recruiters dive into the details, hiring managers want to talk about skills. They don’t quite understand how to make it a story and skip the traditional years of experience.
A simple metaphor can help you explain (assuming you’re not hiring me to teach you how to write a job posting). I call it the plate test.
See, when hiring managers think about bringing someone into the team, they are often reaching tipping points as far as exhaustion or bandwidth. They’re not in the best place to create skills-based content that’s explicit but also clear. They feel worn out. They don’t know where to start.
Ask this: “What’s coming off your plate when I make this hire? How about the rest of your team?” It’s that simple.
We don’t make hires to have another warm body sitting around. We hire someone to take a project off of our plate, right? When you write a job posting, start by describing projects that this person will take over. When we begin to talk about work in the current experience context, it’s much easier for hiring managers to back off the standard requirements. They know precisely what they are looking for because they understand the work on their plate.
Try this next time you write a job posting with a new hiring manager. See how it can help you simplify the standard requirements and even remove bias from your job postings.
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Kat Kibben View All →
Kat Kibben [they/them] is a keynote speaker, writing expert, and LGBTQIA+ advocate who teaches hiring teams how to write inclusive job postings that will get the right person to apply faster.
Before founding Three Ears Media, Katrina was a CMO, Technical Copywriter, and Managing Editor for leading companies like Monster, Care.com, and Randstad Worldwide. With 15+ years of recruitment marketing and training experience, Katrina knows how to turn talented recruiting teams into talented writers who write for people, not about work.
Today, Katrina is frequently featured as an HR and recruiting expert in publications like The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Forbes. They’ve been named to numerous lists, including LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Job Search & Careers. When not speaking, writing, or training, you’ll find Katrina traveling the country in their van or spending some much needed downtime with the dogs that inspired the name Three Ears Media.