The CompTIA MSP Guidebook: Cultivating a Culture of Process E昀케ciency Best Practices: The Hiring Process Writing a Job Description You can 昀椀nd common job descriptions online, but the most e昀昀ective way to ensure you’re attracting the right applicants is by creating a skills-based job description speci昀椀cally for your company. Switching to a skills-based hiring approach doesn’t have to be complicated. It starts with writing job descriptions that are focused on skills. Here’s how you do it: 1. Make college degrees preferred, not required. In IT, college degrees can be over-valued. Nevertheless, it is okay to want to hire job candidates who possess college degrees. After all, degrees show that individuals can complete long-term goals and have signi昀椀cant knowledge in a speci昀椀c area of interest. But if you want to switch to skills-based hiring, stress in your job descriptions that four-year degrees are preferred, not required. 2. List alternative ways candidates could have gained necessary skills. Some employers may believe that relaxing their degree requirements for tech jobs will lead to attracting job candidates who are unquali昀椀ed and unskilled. This isn’t the case. There are other ways candidates can attain skills needed for a job without getting a degree. Skills-based job descriptions show candidates that the hiring organization embraces alternative credentials, such as IT certi昀椀cations, IT certi昀椀cates or relevant work experience. 3. Spell out each job’s required skills. The most important step in writing a skills-based job description is listing the speci昀椀c skills the job calls for, without requiring that the candidate gleaned those skills via a four-year degree. Use CompTIA’s Job Posting Optimizer to help create skills-based job descriptions. 19