Recruiting family managed support staff can sometimes be challenging. Creating a solid job description is essential to finding the best candidate.  A job description provides a focus to identify those target areas necessary for hiring a successful candidate.  Generating a job description prior to advertising is also a great tool to screen potential candidates and can easily be condensed into a job advertisement.

 The major components of the job description are:

• Job summary (purpose of the job, what and how it will be done)
• Major responsibilities
• Specific tasks of the position
• Ideal characteristics desired in a successful candidate

Three important areas to include under the major responsibilities are:

• Key skills
• Knowledge
• Attitudes a successful candidate must meet

Cauvier (2004) suggests prioritizing skills and abilities as “absolute, beneficial or convenient” for the job.

Once you have hired a staff, the job description is a good tool to use when regularly meeting with staff to understand those areas that are going well.

Click to view an example job description for hiring a family managed support worker

Click for more resources on Recruiting, Hiring and Managing Inclusion Support Workers