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When your job description is clear, detailed and captures the essence of what you’re looking to achieve, you’ll get more tradies wanting to pitch for your job.
Here’s a great example of a job description written by homeowners Jeremy and Alana, featured in our Project Home series.
We have recently purchased an original 1960’s 3 bedroom summerhill stone clad home.
We’re looking for an experienced Bricklayer to undertake the following:
Brick over two existing external doorways. These have been framed up by our builder. This brickwork will need to be toothed into the existing brickwork to create a seamless pattern.
We have replaced two large windows with triple stacker sliding doors. The doors extend down to floor level, another foot or so lower than the original windows. The surplus bricks have been removed already. We need angled brick sills re-built for the bottom of the doors.
The main entrance door was not possible to install without removing a column of bricks from the wall next to it. These will need to be rebuilt.
We would like the original bricks re-used where possible. We would like you to supply any additional bricks required to do the job.
We need to complete this job within the next 4 weeks as it’s part of a larger renovation project.
If any other labour is required to achieve this, we’d like the tradesperson to source subcontractors.
So what makes this job description great? And how can you achieve this too?
1 - They break it down
Alana and Jeremy have carefully thought about what they want to achieve and considered how this might equate to a task list for the tradie:
- Brick over 2 existing external doorways.
- Create angled brick sills under their new doors.
- Reinstate bricks which have been removed in order to install a new door.
2 - They’ve thought about materials
They’ve also considered how they want to manage the use and supply of materials:
- Re-use their old bricks where possible.
- Bricklayer to supply new where required.
3 - They’ve shown the tradies the job
They’ve included photos to show the existing layout of the house and the areas of the house which need brickwork - this gives the tradie an idea of what type of material is being used on the house and an indication of if this job may be straight forward or if there are things they may not have considered.
4 - They’ve provided timeframes
Alana and Jeremy have indicated when they need the work done so any tradies reading their post can immediately assess if they have the capacity to take the job.
5 - They’ve considered extra labour
They’ve said that if any other trades are needed to achieve this job, they’d like the tradesperson to arrange this - for a job like this, it’s a bit more straightforward - but if you were doing something such as installing a kitchen, you’re likely to need several sub trades.
So what’s the result?
From the outset, the tradies reading their job description have an idea of the potential scope of this job, how it fits in with their skills and they may fit into their schedule.
But what if you’re not sure exactly what you need?
It’s common for homeowners not to know exactly what they need to do, and not be able to go into this level of detail - that’s fine - if you can capture the sentiment of what you’d like to achieve in your job description, then a good tradie will be able to ask questions which uncover exactly what is needed.
Ready to get started? Post your job now.