What If Job Descriptions Actually Made Sense?

Let’s talk about job descriptions — not the kind we dust off and post to Indeed every few years, but the kind that actually shape culture, clarify expectations, and drive performance.

Too many of us are still hiring for unicorns — looking for candidates who are strategic visionaries, detail-obsessed doers, trauma-informed collaborators, and spreadsheet whisperers... all wrapped into one human being. That’s not clarity — that’s confusion dressed up as ambition.

🔍 What We’ve Been Learning: Making Job Descriptions Make Sense

We flipped the script in a recent training I facilitated with supervisors across Philadelphia’s public and nonprofit ecosystem. We started with logic models — a tool usually used in program design — and used it to build better supervision tools. The question wasn’t just “What do we need this person to do?” but also:

• What will they produce?
• How will we measure success?
• What skills and competencies are "actually" required — not aspirational?

✨ Let’s be honest: Too often, we inflate degree requirements or ask for credentials that have little to do with the day-to-day work. Lived experience, cultural fluency, and role-specific skills are often more valuable than a diploma. If the work doesn’t require a master’s degree, we shouldn't list it “just in case.”

And that’s where the shift happened.

By asking teams to define activities, outputs, outcomes, and then build from there, job descriptions stopped being vague wish lists and became real, living documents that supported better hiring, supervision, and evaluations.

🧠 Why It Works

When you apply a trauma-informed lens to performance management, everything changes:

✅ You clarify what success actually looks like, which reduces ambiguity and anxiety.
✅ You stop over-hiring for qualities that sound good but don’t map to outcomes.
✅ You can give meaningful feedback because the role itself is built on measurable work.
✅ You build equity into your systems — because clarity is kindness, especially for those navigating marginalization or bias in the workplace.

✏️ One Practical Takeaway

Ask yourself: “If someone did this job well, what would I see?” Not what kind of person they’d be — but what they’d do. That’s your KPI. That’s your supervision rubric. That’s the future of workforce development.

💬 Closing Thought

Workforce leaders: It’s time we stop hiring superheroes and start hiring humans — with real strengths, absolute clarity, and genuine support. That begins with rewriting the rules — and the job descriptions — with intention.

📌 Want to go deeper?
The Trauma-Informed Manager Workbook — coming soon on Amazon!

You can also Book a consultation to bring this training to your team.

💡 Thought this was helpful? Buy me a coffee and help keep this work going.