After months of filling multiple roles in your legal department, you’ve finally received approval for a new attorney hire. The first step is creating the job description. Often, we become so familiar with our own organization that we fail to include the “sizzle factor” when advertising legal job openings and consequently, miss out on a great marketing opportunity.
Here are 6 tips to make your job description stand out:
- Brief Summary. Provide a one-sentence opener with simple information about the company and the position. For example: “Fortune 500 energy company based in Houston seeks a senior commercial transactions counsel to support the pipeline division.”
- Ideal Experience. List the type of experience that will lead to success in this position. Providing this information sometimes causes candidates to self-screen (depending on where you post the job), and might save you from an avalanche of unqualified résumés.
- Position Details. What is the role? To whom does it report? If you have a range with an absolute maximum, list it. If you think you might want to consider candidates with on-point experience but who might have higher compensation expectations, leave the range open or negotiable, depending on experience.
- Opportunity. What’s great about this job? What will this employee get to learn and accomplish? How will it advance a career?
- Describe the company. Along with the basics, such as company size (in revenues and number of employees), industry and location, be sure to include information about the company vision for the short and long term, and what it’s like to work there.
- Benefits. Provide detailed information about your benefits offering. Many descriptions merely tack on a line at the end that says, “… and excellent benefits.” Remember – this component is increasingly important to Generations X, Y and beyond. Most law firms don’t offer a 401(k) with a matching contribution to non-partners, and very few companies these days offer defined benefit plans.
