I was motivated to write this blog article after a coaching session with a client who decided he needed to hire an internal sales rep so he could free himself to work on pro-active sales to his niche market.

There is often a resistance on the part of business owners and managers to write job descriptions. They usually want someone else to do it for them.

But there are many excellent reasons to write a good job description. I have included a link to download a simple job description template.

Here are 10 good reasons to write a job description

1.   Help you to hire the right person for the job
2.   Use it as an aid to conduct hiring interviews
3.   Use it as a starting point to write an advert about the job
4.   Use it to make sure you are clear about what you expect from your direct reports
5.   Use it as a tool to clarify performance expectations of your direct reports
6.   Use it to meet with your direct reports to make sure your expectations are aligned
7.   Use if to set goals with your direct reports
8.   Use it to conduct regular performance appraisals
9.   Use it to identify training needs
10.   Use it as a tool to protect you and your company against complaints of wrong dismissal.

Now ask yourself when was the last time you wrote a good job description and reviewed it with your current employees?

Here is a link to download a job description template.

In an upcoming blog I will cover how to complete a job description.

If all this makes sense then set some time now to get started on this. Once you have written a few, it should not take longer than 1 hour to write a good first drat. I recommend writing a first draft, let it sit for a day and then complete it.

In university they teach you that to write a good job description you need to have an unbiased person observe the person performing the tasks and then write it up. But this is a laborious process that often never gets done. So don’t play it by the book. Just do it!

The job description template in Word can be downloaded here