# Step 1 — Define the role properly (job analysis) - **Episode:** [03](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/03.md) (2022-07-15) - **Type:** other - **Tags:** job-analysis, recruitment, process - **Time:** 10:53–18:45 (start 653s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/03?t=653](https://truthliesandwork.com/03?t=653) --- [10:53] Leanne Elliott: Sure. So, the, the process for recruitment really is, I guess it, it might be turning on its head perhaps what feels intuitive, but the first thing you need to really understand is the role that you're recruiting. So, not the person, the role. How does that role function within your business? How does it contribute to the performance and success of your business? And what Type of experience, capabilities, skills do you need to fulfil that function within the business? This is, in a word, called job analysis. Job analysis is really just about understanding the specific tasks that need to be done and speaking to people. It's impossible for you to try and imagine how this role will function as an individual, even as a leader, even that line manager of that post. You need to speak to people within the team. Where are we missing? Why do we need the extra effort? Where are work demands high? And how is this role going to contribute to that? Once you understand the exact functionality of the role, you can then think about the type of person that you need. And that's when we talk about competencies, the knowledge, skills, and abilities that somebody needs to perform well in that job [12:04] Al Elliott: You're saying that it's almost like a collaborative process for everyone involved in this new role. I mean, I think that's pretty cool. Imagine I haven't had a job since about 1998, but I'd imagine if I was in a company and I could see that we needed someone new, then this just almost like, um, this helps me to understand A, how they're going to fit into the team, B, what the responsibilities are, and C, almost like I'm excited to get this new person because they're going to help me do my job a bit better [12:37] Leanne Elliott: Absolutely [12:39] Al Elliott: Yeah [12:39] Leanne Elliott: And I think it can be, it can be understandable to think, you know, And quite one-dimensionally of, okay, well, we need a new marketing or social media assistant, so let's just put out a job for social media assistant and let's be done with it. If you then speak to your team and they say, yes, we do need help with social media, but actually what would be really useful if we also had somebody who can manage certain aspects of the client relationship, or it's more the administrative side rather than the content of the social media, that— [13:12] Al Elliott: Yeah [13:42] Al Elliott: Yeah [13:47] Al Elliott: We actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work [14:07] Leanne Elliott: The audio destination for business professionals [14:49] Al Elliott: It can [14:56] Leanne Elliott: But come back [14:57] Al Elliott: Yeah, come back. Definitely come back. Because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in. It's interesting because if you were to look at visually, which you can, by the way, you can go to oblonghq.com/roadmap and you can see that we're talking about the first stage of this roadmap. But there are 3 distinct steps to recruitment. And certainly when I've done recruitment in the past, and I think that most people, they start off with the search. So they go, right, I need, I need a new person. So I'm going to go on to talentjobs.com. or Wicked Jobs or Monster Jobs. It's a long time since I've done any recruitment. I think I've made all these up. But I'll go in there and I'd say, right, and write an advert, and then it'll go, what's the job role? And I'll be like, oh, okay, uh, let's think about this. What you're saying is that's coming last. You start off by defining the job role, and then, then you, you know exactly what you want. You've got collaborative process to get this role. After that, then you go to step 2, which is— [15:55] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, I think just to— you're absolutely right, that is step 1. I think that the final part of that step 1 is to create an attractive offer. So, it's not just about deciphering as a leader what you can afford to pay this role or what that role is worth. And this is part of the fight for talent. It's really useful to speak to either recruiters or do your own research in the market and understand what the kind of going salary is. What is the average salary? Is there a comparative role out there that you can benchmark? What are your competitors? And then in terms of benefits, like you said, is it a remote role? Is it hybrid? Is it pension? Is there training and development budget involved? It's as much about crafting the offer before the role even goes out to market, because so many organisations will get into that trap of, oh, we found a great candidate, but we can't afford them because their expectations are well above it [16:52] Al Elliott: Mm-hmm [16:53] Leanne Elliott: Or organisations will agree to pay that, and then you've got this discrepancy of pay within your business. It's a minefield. So if you've already got kind of a benchmark idea of what that role is worth to you as a business and what it's worth in the market, you're going to be much more confident when it comes to those conversations with candidates later down the line [17:09] Al Elliott: I think it's funny, and I'm sure there's a podcast episode in this somewhere, but paying people more doesn't necessarily mean that you attract better candidates. I mean, I've read lots of surveys where, where the benefit that they, or, or the, the thing that they like about their job Money comes like 4, 5, 6, 7 down the, down the list. So what you're saying is that even if you couldn't necessarily afford someone whose expectation is 80 to 100 grand a year, then they might accept 60 if the employer brand is good, or there's a work-from-home element to it, or training development or something like that [17:44] Leanne Elliott: Absolutely. Yeah. And it's really understanding, you know, what, what the drivers are for people or what Drivers fit in with your culture. If you are a hybrid business, um, I know you've, um, there's a blog on our website that you were looking at recently about the— they're called super commuters, which is an option where people will, will live 4 or 5 hours away from where they work, but they'll travel in for periods of time, stay in hotels, and then leave. The cost of that, because their cost of living is so much lower elsewhere, Mm-hmm. Then, you know, it changes things. So, if you've got that option or that flexibility, or as you say, there's other benefits such as training and development, fast-track routes to management potentially further down the line, equity share, or, you know, other benefits like this, then yes, salary isn't the be-all and end-all [18:38] Al Elliott: Brilliant. Well, I'm sure we'll do an episode on that at some point. So, we've got step number 1, which is define the job role. Step number 2 is?