Writing a role brief a candidate actually understands

Start from the work, not the wishlist of tools

Before you write a single line of the job ad, produce the role brief: one page, six boxes, written with the person who will manage the work. Sit with them for thirty minutes and ask what the hire does in week one, month one and month three. Write the answers as tasks, not traits. "Own the weekly stock reconciliation in the finance sheet" is a task. "Detail-oriented self-starter" is a wish.

The wishlist brief is why a founder posts a vague ad and then drowns in mismatched CVs. The ad says "marketing generalist, fast-paced environment" and 140 applications arrive, of which perhaps 12 match the actual work. The fix is not a longer ad. It is a shorter brief that names the three tasks the hire performs most often.

Structured hiring guidance from the US Office of Personnel Management and SHRM's talent-acquisition coverage both start from the same premise: define the work and the competencies before you advertise, then assess against that definition. See SHRM talent-acquisition coverage for how job analysis feeds the rest of the loop.

Artifact produced: the role brief, one page, signed off by the hiring manager before any ad goes live.

Must-have versus nice-to-have, stated as tasks

Split the brief into two lists. Must-have items are tasks the hire cannot avoid in the first ninety days. Nice-to-have items are tasks you would like in year two. Keep the must-have list to five items or fewer. If everything is a must, nothing is.

Write each item as a task with a verb and an object: "Run the monthly supplier review and update the price list", "Answer tier-one support tickets in the shared inbox". Then write the evidence you will accept for each: a work sample, a past example the candidate describes, or a short exercise. This is the scoring grid you will use later, and writing it now stops the panel from inventing criteria mid-interview.

Atlassian's hiring-process playbook makes the same point in its team-management guidance: agree the evaluation criteria before interviews, so the panel scores the same things. The Atlassian hiring-process playbook is a practical companion to the brief.

Artifact produced: the scoring grid, one row per must-have task, with a weight that totals 100 across the rows.

Salary band, location and contract terms up front

Put the band, the location pattern and the contract type in the brief and in the ad. A band is a range with a floor and a ceiling, for example 48,000 to 56,000 per year for a full-time permanent role, three days per week in the office. These figures are illustrative, not a market benchmark. State the band you will actually pay, not a range you intend to negotiate below.

Terms to state plainly: contract type, weekly hours, probation length, notice period, holiday allowance and whether the role is hybrid, on-site or remote. If the band is genuinely open, say so and give the range you will consider.

This is where a candidate kept waiting a week loses trust. If the ad omits the band, the candidate applies, waits, then discovers the pay is 20 per cent below expectation. The exact action: put the band in the ad, and in your first reply email give the band, the interview stages and the expected dates. A three-day offer window after the final stage is a reasonable default for small teams, and you should say so in the brief.

Artifact produced: the terms block, six lines, copied unchanged into the ad and into the first candidate email.

Where job ads lose qualified applicants

Ads lose good applicants in four predictable places. First, the title does not match the work, so search and referrals miss it. Second, the requirements list mixes must-haves with nice-to-haves, so qualified people self-reject. Third, the ad hides the band and the location pattern. Fourth, the process is invisible: no stages, no dates, no named contact.

The table below compares the two brief styles. The numbers are illustrative, not measured results, and they are internally consistent: 140 applications minus 128 mismatched leaves 12 matching; 45 applications minus 33 mismatched leaves 12 matching.

Run the screening schedule from the brief. Block ninety minutes, score each CV against the five must-have rows, and reject anything scoring below the threshold you set in advance. Do not read CVs one at a time across the week; batch them.

Artifact produced: the screening schedule, one ninety-minute block per shortlisting round, with a written threshold.

A one-page role brief template you can reuse

Copy this structure into a single document and keep it under one page. Every ad, screening grid and interview script is built from it.

1. Role title, written as the work, not the seniority.
2. Three to five must-have tasks, each with accepted evidence.
3. Nice-to-have tasks, clearly marked as optional.
4. Salary band, location pattern, contract type and hours.
5. Process: stages, dates, named contact and the three-day offer window.
6. Scoring grid: one row per must-have task, weights totalling 100.

Then run the loop. Ad published from the brief. Applications batched and scored against the grid. A thirty-minute phone screen using a fixed script of six questions, one per must-have row plus one on terms. A work sample of no more than ninety minutes, scored before any discussion. A decision meeting with a fixed agenda: scores first, discussion second, decision third. This is the debrief-before-discussion pattern, and it stops the loudest voice in the room from setting the outcome.

Take the drifting panel. A hiring manager runs a panel interview that turns into casual chat about a shared hobby, and the panel leaves with warm feelings but no evidence. The exact action: give the panel the scoring grid, ask each member to score independently within ten minutes of the interview ending, and only then open the decision meeting. If a score has no evidence note beside it, it does not count.

Artifact produced: the decision meeting agenda, three items, with scores submitted in writing before the meeting starts.

Start today by writing the role brief for your next open role, even if the ad is already live. Name the five must-have tasks, set the weights to 100, and put the band and terms in the first paragraph. That single page is what turns a reactive advert into a screening process you can run in three days.

Sources

The substance of this page rests on the published material linked below. It is independent of this site and was read before writing.

• SHRM, Talent acquisition news
• Atlassian, Hiring process playbook