Are you looking to create the ideal job that aligns with your strengths, interests, and abilities? Writing your own job description can be a powerful way to take control of your career and create a position that benefits both you and your employer. I’ll walk you through the steps of how to write your own job description, including identifying a need for a new position, creating a job title, describing the role’s alignment with the company’s mission, and listing the job duties and qualifications. I’ll also provide a template and example to help guide you through the process. Follow these tips and take the first step towards finding your dream job.
The steps to writing your own job description
- Identify the need for a new position.
- Explain how your job solves a problem or meets a need that is currently not being addressed.
- Use research and your own experience to back up your argument for why this position is necessary.
- Create a job title and description.
- Choose a descriptive and professional title for your job.
- Write a brief summary that outlines the purpose and main responsibilities of the position.
- List the specific duties and tasks that you will be responsible for.
- Explain how the job aligns with the company’s mission and values.
- Include a statement that shows how your job will support the company’s goals and values.
- Explain how this position contributes to the company’s success.
- Describe the required qualifications and skills.
- List the education, experience, and skills that are necessary for someone to be successful in this role.
- Explain why these qualifications are important for the position.
- Provide a plan for pitching the job to your employer.
- Identify who the appropriate person or group is to pitch the job to.
- Outline the steps you will take to present your proposal, including any materials you will use (such as a written proposal or visual aids).
- Consider possible objections or concerns that your employer may have, and prepare responses to address them.
- Follow up after the pitch.
- If your proposal is accepted, thank your employer and follow through on any next steps that are necessary to implement the new position.
- If your proposal is not accepted, consider whether there are any changes you can make to increase the chances of it being approved in the future.
Step 1: Identify the need for a new position.
For you to really take control of your career and have the best opportunities, you need to demonstrate vision, passion for that vision, and an understanding of what your organization needs to achieve its goals. In 20 years of my career to this point, I have been lucky to have the freedom to both explicitly write my own job description at times and also to develop my own job without writing the job description other times. What responsible owners and managers generally need to see though is how what you do–or will be doing–solves a problem for the organization.
For example, my manager left the company I worked at years ago, and I was left as the most senior member of the team, but not by much. After discussing with my management, I crafted a job description that helped them to see how their overt need for a manager of that team aligned with both my current skill set and the skills and experience I could acquire if given the right support over the coming months.
To do this, I research what managers of that type of role did at other organizations, what responsibilities they typically had before taking on a managerial role, and what I would need to do to develop from where I was to where the company needed me to be. I did this using job board searches and by reaching out to connections of connections on LinkedIn to ask if I could do an informational interview with them.
Step 2: Create a job title and description.
Picking a job title
After clearly identifying, documenting, and being able to make the argument for your position, it is time to choose a descriptive and professional title. To do this, I recommend surveying titles at your existing company and performing searches on job boards.
While Wizard of [pick a topic] or Head of Excellence and whatnot might all be applicable and interesting, they also might present some difficulties for colleagues, clients, and the market to understand. For example, let’s say that you are a high-powered project manager with the Head of Excellence title. Will you colleagues know to come to you for high-level project management guidance versus going to someone with a title like Head (or Director, VP, etc) of Project Management? And while I hope you stay at your current employer forever, the reality is that you might very well move on, but will potential future employers be able to quickly get a sense of what you do if you have a wacky title?
Writing the job description
At this point, keep your job description as brief as possible. You’ve hopefully searched job boards for similar roles, and you likely have pages of examples of roles, responsibilities, descriptions of what the day to day looks like, and so on. Those are all valuable, but the shorter you can make this the better at this point.
You have the need and how it aligns with the company. You have a professional and descriptive job title. Now, write 1-2 paragraphs that outline the purpose for the job and the main responsibilities of the position. For example:
The Chief Futurist role exists to leads the practice of Futurism and establish a consistent company viewpoint on this practice. The main responsibilities for this role are establishing the vision for what Futurism is and how we deliver it, leading high priority client projects in this area, and mentoring and managing our team of Futurists.
Someone reading your high level description should be able to walk away with a strong understanding of what they can rely upon you to accomplish. This is not the How of your job. It is more like the central themes and goals.
Next, you get into the How by describing the specific duties and tasks you will be responsible for. This is where your job board research comes into play again.
Most job listings have innumerable bullet points listing everything people in those roles might have to do, skills they should possess, and so on. Pick the most relevant ones for your new roles and then adjust and add to them based on your vision for the role and how you see it aligning with what the company needs. The length of this list depends on what is appropriate for your company and role. As with many things though, I recommend you keep it as short as reasonably possible.
Step 3: Explain how the job aligns with the company’s mission and values.
By this point, you’ve explained the need for the role, established a descriptive and professional title, written the brief role summary, and documented duties and tasks. The next step is for you to explain how your job supports the company’s goals and values.
Goal Alignment
Thankfully, while many companies lack actual strategies to achieve their goals, few lack goals themselves. Many are unrealistic, more like dreams, but they still exist. So whether your company’s goals are to grow 10% in revenue this year, become the premier provider of paper products in the Northeast, or something else, your responsibility is to explain how your job will help the company achieve those goals.
If for example your company’s goal this year is for revenue to grow 10%, but your job is largely an internally facing role, you can still impact revenue by ensuring that your work is delivered with such high quality, on time, and more that clients want to spend more money with you. Additionally, you might be able to ensure that your company has higher efficiency and/or saves money somehow around your work, so while you might not deliver more revenue, you can deliver more profit.
Value Alignment
Next, you have to align your new job with the company’s values. This can be difficult because most companies lack real values. They more than likely have unrealistic dreams or generic platitudes, that can be read any number of ways, such as “Respect” or “People First”. Still though, if you want success in this endeavor, you have to align your role with the company claims to value.
My company for example has a value about consulting your network. The basic idea is that we want people that are always learning and who will build networks around them that make them and us better. As a result, if I were making an argument for a new leadership position, I could align it with this value by saying that a key aspect of me being in this job will be finding new ways of doing our work and new partners so that we are always improving and constantly bringing new things to the market.
How you contribute to success
You have likely done this throughout your job description, but you need to ensure that you have a clear statement about how your job will contribute to the company’s success. Will you being in your new role generate sales? Will it improve work product quality? Will it open new markets? Is there a need in the business not currently being met?
State clearly how your role will contribute to the company’s success, and you will help executives imagine how what you are asking for aligns with greater company needs.
Step 4: Describe the required qualifications and skills.
Next up, it’s time to list the education, experience, and skills that are necessary for someone to be successful in this role and why they are important for this role. Thanks to you job board searches, you should have a large list of options. This is the space where you list “Bachelors degree in Marketing, Business, or a related field required” and so on.
You cannot reasonably pitch to have a job if you do not have the qualifications, so ensure that the education, experience, and skills are both appropriate to you and also actually necessary for the role. There is no value is listing for example that a BA is required when it’s not. Similarly, if you have 20 years of experience, but someone could do the proposed job with 5 years, you need to list 5 not 20.
Step 5: Provide a plan for pitching the job to your employer.
At this point, your job description itself is likely complete or nearly complete, so beyond editing and refining, your next steps are to:
- Identify who the appropriate person or group is to pitch the job to.
- Outline the steps you will take to present your proposal, including any materials you will use (such as a written proposal or visual aids).
- Consider possible objections or concerns that your employer may have, and prepare responses to address them.
If you have a boss already, but maybe you are pitching a role that would not report to them anymore, you might need to take political or power dynamics into account. There is no use for example pitching a role to your CEO if they’re going to go talk to your current boss and hear that that person knows nothing about your pitch. That might not look too good for you.
As you prepare, ensure that you understand the need, how the company will benefit, and so on so that you can make a cogent and compelling argument. Also, prepare for any objections so that you are not stopped in your tracks at the first question.
Assuming that the person you are pitching to has little knowledge of what you will talk to them about, begin the conversation with a statement of why you want to speak with them such as, “I have identified a need and an opportunity in [this area] and have a proposal for how to address that I would like to speak with you about.” Once you have described the need and opportunity, explain your understanding of how this aligns with the company’s goals and values, and be sure to ask if the person you are speaking to sees the issue in the same way.
If they do not see the issue in the same way, take the time to understand how they see it because you might not still be able to move forward with your pitch. You need information about their perspective though before deciding.
If they do see the issue in the same way you do, explain your pitch for a new role at a high level and then ask if they have any questions and/or would like you to get into details. This is not the time for you to give them a monologue. It would be better to let them talk as much as they are willing to so that they feel heard.
Step 6: Follow up after the pitch.
If your proposal is accepted, thank your employer and follow through on any next steps that are necessary to implement the new position. Typically, this involves an action plan with specific deadlines, and it might very well include a plan for how to replace you in your current role or otherwise cover the work you are currently doing.
If your proposal is not accepted, consider whether there are any changes you can make to increase the chances of it being approved in the future. If at all possible, ask why your proposal was not accepted so that you understand if there is anything to be done and/or where you might not have been in alignment with the needs of the company.
Conclusion
- Identify the need for a new position.
- Create a job title and description.
- Explain how the job aligns with the company’s mission and values.
- Describe the required qualifications and skills.
- Provide a plan for pitching the job to your employer.
- Follow up after the pitch.
To conclude, writing your own job description is a great way to take control of your career development and find job satisfaction. By identifying a need, creating a job title and description, and presenting your proposal to your employer, you can create a position that aligns with your strengths, interests, and abilities. This can lead to more motivation and engagement in your work, as well as the opportunity to develop new skills and add value to the company. Take the time to create a job description that works for you and your employer, and you may find yourself in a fulfilling and enjoyable job tailored just for you. Encourage readers to share their experiences with creating their own job descriptions in the comments below, or to contact you for more information on how to do so.
If you are writing your own job description and have questions, please shoot me a line at eric@inboundandagile.com. I would be happy to help if I can point you to any resources.
