Talk to anyone in sales or customer success and they will tell you that looking for a job is not easy. Well, come to think of it, looking for a job for just about any role seems like an excruciating exercise.

You know folks already have a lot to worry about than to go through job post after job post that just adds no value whatsoever. Exhausting… I know.

Alright, I’m not just going to rant about how the job postings for customer facing roles are all broken and give you fifty reasons as to why they are. I will poke holes and propose solutions as to how they can and should be done right in the first place.

I have done my fair share of hiring and i’ve been very lucky in many ways. Primarily because I got to create the template for all the job postings for my team. Needless to say, this was a huge relief because the job posts that are in the market are just plain bad.

When I say bad, they are filled with jargon, unrealistic expectations and littered with filler words that make no sense in real life but sound great on paper.

Motivated to work? I mean why would I be applying for a role if i’m not motivated to work 🤦‍♂️

So what can be done differently?

To begin, start with honestly outlining who exactly is it that you are looking for. Your ideal candidate, so to speak. Most companies, specifically HR teams really focus on writing out the perfect job post. Let me break it to ya, there is no such thing. Try honesty instead.

Start with a little bit of background about the company, dive straight into requirements and then expectations.

To make things more interesting, I will add the template that I think is perfect for sales and/or customer success roles. I mean you can tweak it any way you’d like but I do believe it captures the essence of what I believe is to be a no BS approach to searching for talent.

Why is the background of the company important?

You want people to apply for the open position, the least we can do from our end is to ensure that everyone understands a little bit about what we as a company do. Yes, you can expect candidates to do some research on their own, but this is a daunting task if you have to apply for multiple different roles everyday. Adding a little bit of background helps candidates get a better understanding of your company. Making the candidates life just a little bit easier.

👉 Please avoid fluff words where you can. Candidates will always appreciate if you are straight to the point about what the company does rather than writing about how you operate in a space that has a market share of $2 Billion. Flex much?

Be direct. Offer valuable information that will help paint an accurate picture of who you are as a company.

Requirements, shall we?

Most of the folks that I hire, they ask me this question on the interview. What kind of candidate are you looking for?

I legitimately have thought a lot about this and the answer that I came up with was, well I’m looking for a responsible adult. Let’s break it down.

A responsible adult in this case for me is a person that knows what it takes to get the job done. They have the right experience and attitude for the job. Most importantly they do not need to be told how to get the job done. They need the right tools and space to operate the way they operate best.

Yup that’s it. That’s the ideal candidate for me.

So if i’m being straight forward with the candidates on the interview, why wouldn’t I be straight up with them with who exactly is it that i’m looking for as a candidate?

Write down exactly what the requirements are without fluff. If you’re looking for a candidate with minimum 3 years experience doing outbound sales. Write that.

If you want a candidate that has managed a book of business for at least 5 years, write that.

If you want a candidate with cold calling experience, just simply write that.

See where i’m going with this?

Be straightforward to the point. No one has the time of day to go through a job posting that is three pages long. If you as a company cannot be coherent about what your requirements are for the role you are hiring for, how do you expect the candidates to be different?

Expect good talent but in return make it abundantly clear to the talent what qualities, requirements you are hiring for.

Steps throughout the interview process

Yes, most companies skip through this. Don’t.

Write down exactly what the hiring process looks like.

• If there is a technical interview, what will that consist off?
• How many calls/interviews will the candidate need to go through?
• How long will the calls take?
• When can the candidate expect a job offer?
• How long does it take usually to go through all the stages of the interviewing process?

Look, it’s important to have this information listed out, because there might be candidates out there that need a job sooner rather than later and cannot wait and go through the process for 30 days. If this is how long the hiring process takes, let them know. Don’t give people false hope.

It’s not good for either parties. Alright, let’s move on to some more fun stuff.

Financials

It’s ironic to me that most job posts nowadays do not contain information about the salary or OTE for that matter.

Why companies do that is beyond me. You do realize (i’m talking to you HR team), that you will have to scour through 100s if not 1000s of applications to find the right candidate if you do not list the salary figures.

Because people will apply to the job thinking its a good fit for them, only to realize mid way through the process that the position you are looking to hire for is a not a good match for the candidate money wise.

It’s time wasted for both parties and most importantly, energy wasted and you are no step closer to finding the right candidate and the candidate is not closer to finding the right job.

Do everyone a favor and just list out the salary for the position. Whatever it may be. At least then you will know that people applying (hopefully) have read through the requirements for the role and know what the compensation looks like.

No more lost time due to money.

While on the subject of financials, don’t give a massive OTE range. I have seen job posts, where the OTE ranged anywhere from $70K – $160K, that’s not OTE. It just isn’t.

Write the exact number and right after that, write down what % of the sales or the success team reaches that goal on a monthly basis.

Be transparent. This not only instills confidence in the company but also attracts top talent that just does not want to get sand bagged.

Yup, these 3 points while similar in every single job post out there, differ quite a lot.

So to summarize:

• Be concise and exact with the requirements
• No filler or fluff words/sentences
• List out exactly who you are looking for
• Be direct and straight forward
• Always write about the expected pay
• Be transparent

If most companies do all this in the similar fashion, I promise we can fix the broken process that we have currently. All it takes is companies willing to take the initiative and be straight forward with the candidates. I promise the net result will be worth it, because it will want the candidates to go above and beyond for the company that treated them with respect and dignity.

Respect talent. A company is nothing without its major driving force. The people.

Ah yes, for all who were waiting for the perfect job post, alright alright, hold your horses. 👇 check it out. Feel free to copy and edit as you see fit.

Job post template

We are looking for a driven Account Executive to join our sales team and help it scale. You will help us grow by taking care of inbound leads, booking meetings with prospective clients, and other contact requests that come through marketing channels.

The salary for this position is $90,000 annually and we are committed to reviewing salaries every year based on company and individual performance.

The OTE for this role is $115,000. On average 90% of the team hits that number YoY.

You can work from anywhere in the world as long as your main location has ~4 hours overlap with the UTC+3 time zone.

As an Account Executive, your main responsibilities will be:

1. Reach out to all incoming inbound leads in your timezone
2. Reach out to them via Aircall, email, InMail, or social to book meetings with potential prospects
3. Maintain a robust pipeline and accurate forecasts.
4. Document all activities within our CRM, maintaining flawless data management and data hygiene. Yes we need those demos notes logged correctly!
5. Be tenacious. Conduct follow-up calls and emails until meetings are set.
6. No cold calling.
7. Close as many deals as you possibly can and hit your monthly/quarterly quota. The monthly target for this role hovers around $3K new MRR MoM.

About the team

Talk about how big the sales team is and write down what you believe best describes your team culture.

Wonder if you’ll fit in? Learn more about our culture (always a good idea to have a dedicated page talking about company culture, link it there if you have it)

About you

If you are looking for an exciting opportunity at a fully-remote product-led SaaS business, we should talk!

In particular, we would love to hear from you if:

• You are a great team player and communicator when working with others. You are responsive to feedback and always seek to learn and improve.
• You like transparency, openness, and asking questions. Your English communication, both written and verbal, is great and you prefer to over- rather than under-communicate.
• You are passionate about solving customer problems and ensure that all product decisions are guided by deep understanding of users, you strive to create exceptional value for them.
• You leverage data and analytics proficiently to drive product decisions, identify trends, measure success, and make data-informed recommendations.
• You have demonstrated strong experience as a sales rep in a high-growth, product-led B2B SaaS company.

Benefits

• Freedom to choose when and how much you work—we only measure results
• Exact days of holiday
• In-person meetups for team-building (expenses covered)
• 4-6 weeks paid sabbatical (depending on tenure)
• What kind of budget you offer for candidates home office?
• Any stipend for going to conferences?
• Anything that you believe will be useful, simply add it in the benefits section. Just remember, be straightforward.

See, that wasn’t that hard was it?

There is never a perfect solution for anything we do in life. But what we can do is make things and processes simpler for everyone around us. We do that and we open ourselves up to a world of different opportunities, and talent. And most importantly, people will thank you for it.

Be the change you want to see in the world.