Are JD's useful?

In the last couple of days I have sat down with a couple of organisations to discuss certain roles (nothing new in that). BUT I was thinking how much time and effort people put into developing them and how useful they really are?

JD's is short for Job Descriptions!

Now I am sure there are many people (I admit I am not great) whom can draw up a great JD and that there are some great JD's out in the market, that explain the job, the daily tasks, the culture of organisation etc but my head tells me that there are many, many JD's that don't do justice to the organisation and the role. In fact it may turn people away because it is to long, to dull, doesn't really tell me much etc

So what can else can you do?

- Put a video up on YouTube or your website on what the office is like - shows people that you have appreciation of Social Media
- Do a job description via a Video upload - have the line manager talking about the role, the challenges involved, the people in his team, some of the projects their team have been involved in etc
- Be upfront on what daily tasks people will be doing (if the role involves spending 2-hours a day drawing Visio diagrams tell people, as what you don't want is people being surprised when they turn up to the interview to hear certain things or even worse when they have accepted the role and get surprised).
- Get some photos up on your website off some social events involving your staff - snapshot of culture
- Get people to 'pass a test' (it might be a programming test) before submitting their resume - gives people an impression on what is expected

On that note I should take note myself of what I am writing!!