how do you write an ad for a job that can be very unpleasant?

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I was working on writing up a job ad today for temporary research assistants for a field biology project, and noticed trends in my ads and in others’. It’s common for early career employees applying to assistant or technician jobs to think that they want to do fieldwork and then quit in the middle of the season because it wasn’t what they expected. There are really fun parts like getting to travel to cool places, camp or backpack, work directly with plants and animals, and meet new people. However, employees are often underpaid (especially at the technician level), work long hours, and must front some transportation or per diem costs before getting reimbursed. They are far from their friends and family camping for long periods of time and without cell service in some cases. Often, these staff are expected to work through bad weather (if it’s safe), hike long distances, do manual labor all day, and deal with biting and stinging insects. This can be compounded if you’re assigned to work with one other person and it turns out that you don’t get along with them. It can be downright miserable!

The solution to this seems to be that we become very up-front about the working conditions in the job and write requirements like, “Must be comfortable carrying 30 pounds in high heat and humidity for 13 hours per day off trail on uneven terrain with biting flies and mosquitos while maintaining a positive attitude.” It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to have an off day here and there in those conditions — especially if you have been working and living with the same one or two people for three weeks. I think writing like that just comes off … wrong?

I am worried that, in an effort to be transparent, we make ourselves sound uninviting and expect that green staff will fail. I think it also emphasizes physical tolerance where emotional intelligence and maturity can make or break a field season. Do you have any advice for striking a balance when hiring for jobs that have inherent challenges?

P.S. I make it sound terrible but there are many of us who really love it!

The instinct to be very up-front about the working conditions is the right one! The more transparent and realistic you are, and the more you paint a picture of what the work is really like, the more you’ll attract candidates who will do well and the more likely the “wrong” candidates will self-select out.

When you’re hiring, truth in advertising about the less appealing parts of the job is a good thing. You want people to have a good understanding of what they’d be getting into. It’s true that you don’t want to cross over into “this job sucks! but you’ll need to keep a smile on your face!” … but you shouldn’t shy away from describing things as accurately as possible.

I would also think about what traits and experiences people who do well in the job tend to share, and talk about that as well — “if you’re the person on camping trips who’s always tracking the animal droppings you see and isn’t daunted if it rains, this may be you” or so forth. (These are undoubtedly terrible examples — non-camper here — but you’ll have better ones since you’re familiar with the work and the actual qualities that predict success.) Or, “We’ve found people who thrive in this role generally have ____ (“spent extended time outdoors in various weather conditions,” “a high degree of emotional intelligence and the ability to work in sometimes uncomfortably close quarters with a wide range of people,” or whatever is true).

With a job like this, where you get a lot of people who don’t fully understand what they’re signing on for, I might even consider including one or two short testimonials from people who have done the job successfully and liked it — just a short paragraph from a couple people on what the experience was like for them, what was tough, and why they liked it anyway (without any sugarcoating).

You could also run the draft of your ad by people who are doing the job currently or did it recently and ask for their feedback — do they think it’s a full and accurate representation? Are there other things they wish they knew before they got hired?

But it’s much better to err on the side of too much transparency than not enough.