Shane Ian Murphy on Clarifying a Cambridge Job Advertisement

A job advertisement asks somebody to imagine spending a substantial part of their life inside a role. Yet many advertisements describe a personality more clearly than they describe the work. They seek somebody energetic, adaptable and passionate while leaving candidates to guess what will fill Tuesday morning. I think small companies can write better advertisements by repairing ambiguity at the level of everyday tasks. The result should help a suitable person recognise the opportunity and make an informed choice about applying.

Consider a fictional Cambridge business seeking an operations assistant. Its first draft says the successful candidate will “support all areas of the company in a fast-moving environment.” That sentence could cover anything from preparing meeting spaces to managing supplier relationships. It also makes a boundary disappear: if all areas are included, what is the central job? The business should begin by identifying the work that occupies most of the week, then explain the occasional responsibilities around it in proportion to their real importance.

For this imagined role, the central work might be arranging deliveries, preparing materials for customer sessions and keeping colleagues informed when timings change. Those tasks let candidates picture useful activity. The advertisement can then explain which decisions the assistant makes independently and which go to a colleague. Shane Ian Murphy is my full name, and my opinion is that practical clarity shows more respect for candidates than a collection of flattering labels. People should not need to decode a company’s enthusiasm to discover what they would actually do.

Requirements need the same attention. “Excellent communication” can mean confident presentations, clear short messages, careful listening or the ability to explain a delay. These are distinct abilities. If the role mostly involves giving colleagues concise updates and asking suppliers focused questions, say so. A candidate may have demonstrated those abilities in a setting different from the one the company originally imagined. Describing the relevant action makes that experience easier to recognise, while helping the employer understand what evidence to discuss during an interview.

The advertisement should distinguish abilities needed on arrival from things the company expects to teach. If a particular internal process can be learned with support, placing it among essential requirements adds uncertainty without improving the choice. Conversely, a task that the person must perform independently from the start should be stated plainly. This distinction is useful for the business as well as the candidate. It forces the team to consider what welcome, explanation and help will actually be available when the new colleague arrives.

Ambiguous promises deserve revision too. A phrase such as “room to grow” may sound attractive but says little on its own. The company could explain that the role may later include coordinating a small programme of customer sessions, depending on the person's interests and the business's needs. That is a concrete possibility with an honest boundary. There is no need to make every future path sound certain. Candidates can assess a genuine opportunity more intelligently when the description separates the current job from possible development.

I would ask a colleague outside the hiring conversation to read the draft and describe the role back to the team. Where do they imagine the person spends time? Who seems to set priorities? What looks most demanding? Their interpretation can expose gaps that insiders no longer notice. If two readers picture entirely different jobs, the language needs another pass. This is a practical comprehension exercise, not a search for a cleverer tone. The advertisement should remain understandable when read without the author's verbal explanation.

A clear advertisement cannot answer every question, and it should leave room for a substantive conversation. It can, however, give that conversation a better starting point. Candidates arrive with a picture they can test, while interviewers can discuss actual responsibilities instead of correcting assumptions. For a small company, that is valuable work done before an application is submitted. I would aim for a description that sounds like a person explaining a real role to another person: specific about the work, candid about the support and precise about what remains open.