You will be able to write a role profile that names the outcomes and skills the job needs.
Daniel has approved one new hire for Wei Ling's team, to handle a large client starting next quarter. Her first move was to dig out the last job ad the company ran for a similar role, which asked for "a dynamic, young team player with excellent communication skills, minimum five years' experience, Mandarin-speaking an advantage". She changed a few words and was about to post it.
That ad describes nobody in particular. It would attract a pile of applications she couldn't compare, and parts of it could fall foul of Singapore's fair employment guidelines. The better first step comes before any ad: work out what the job actually needs.
Before you list a single skill, write down what the person must achieve in their first year, as results rather than a list of duties. What would make you say, twelve months from now, that hiring them was the right decision?
Wei Ling wrote three. First, run the new client account so the client's weekly reports go out on time and escalations are resolved within a working day, from month three onward. Second, build working relationships with the client's warehouse and finance teams so routine issues are settled without Wei Ling. Third, by month twelve, take on one improvement project for the team's reporting process.
Only then list the skills those outcomes require. Running a client account needs clear written communication, comfort with spreadsheets, and the ability to stay calm with an unhappy client. Building relationships with a client's warehouse team needs someone who is comfortable picking up the phone. An improvement project needs someone who notices when a process is wasteful and suggests a fix.
Working from outcomes to skills keeps the profile honest. It's easy to list skills that sound good, like "strategic thinker" or "dynamic", that the job doesn't actually need. If you can't link a skill to an outcome, it doesn't belong on the list.
Next, split the skills into two groups.
Must-have skills are ones the person needs on day one, or the job cannot work. For Wei Ling's role: clear written English for client emails, working confidence with spreadsheets, and experience handling customer complaints.
Learnable skills are ones a capable person could pick up in the first few months with support. Her company's ticketing system, the specifics of logistics contracts, the client's internal processes. Every new hire will need to learn these, and none of them justifies screening anyone out.
This split matters more than it looks. Profiles that treat learnable skills as must-haves shrink the pool for no good reason, and often screen out people who would be excellent. "Minimum five years' experience" is a common example. Ask what the five years is a stand-in for. If the answer is "handling difficult clients", say that, and accept candidates who can show it in two years.
In Singapore, the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices, TAFEP, publishes the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices. Among other things, they say job ads should state the criteria relevant to the job and should not include criteria such as age, gender or race, or wording that implies them, which rules out words like "young" as well as preferences for a race, religion or gender that have nothing to do with the work.
Language requirements need care too. If the role genuinely needs a particular language, for example because a key client works in Mandarin, the guidelines expect the ad to say why. With no reason given, "Mandarin-speaking an advantage" reads as a preference about the kind of person you want to hire. Read TAFEP's guidance on job advertisements before you post, because it has examples of acceptable and unacceptable wording.
Singapore has also passed a Workplace Fairness Act. Check MOM's and TAFEP's websites for what applies to your company and when, and involve HR if you have it.
There is one more practical rule. Under MOM's Fair Consideration Framework, some employers must advertise a role on MyCareersFuture before applying for certain work passes for a candidate. The rules on who must advertise, for how long and for which passes are set by MOM and do change, so check MOM's current guidance with HR before you start.
A role profile is a one-page document for you and anyone else involved in hiring. It isn't the job ad, though the ad is written from it. It has the role title and who it reports to, why the role exists, three first-year outcomes, five must-have skills, and three learnable skills with a note of how each will be taught.
Wei Ling's took her forty minutes and changed the whole hiring process. Her rewritten ad led with what the job would involve and what the person would achieve, listed the must-have skills plainly, and said that the ticketing system and contract details would be taught. "Young" and "dynamic" were gone. The Mandarin line was gone too, because the new client works in English.
Sales roles have different outcomes and skills, and the course Leading a sales team: hiring, coaching, forecasting covers that kind of hire in detail.
Write the profile for the role you are hiring, or the next one you expect to hire, before you open any old job ad.
Write a one-page role profile with three first-year outcomes, five must-have skills and three learnable ones.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).