Convivio Cookbook
  • Introduction
  • Our Business
    • The Convivio brand
    • What do we do?
    • Our work for clients
    • Our Purpose
    • Our Pulse
      • Big Rocks
      • Problems
    • Company Policies
      • Environmental Policy
      • Anti-Bribery Policy
      • Fair Tax Policy
        • Dividends policy
        • 2020 Results and Tax
        • 2019 Results and Tax
        • 2018 Results and Tax
        • 2017 Results and Tax
  • Our Team
    • Help! I'm new. How do I get started?
    • Starting at Convivio
    • Staff Benefits
    • Being a buddy
    • Having a buddy
    • Free-Range Working
    • Convivio Fridays
    • Notes: give & receive feedback
    • Security Screening
    • Submit Expenses
    • Purchases
    • Your home working environment
    • People Analytics
    • Recruitment
      • Help Card: Writing a Person Profile
      • Help Card: Writing a Job Description and Advert
      • Help Card: Publishing a Job Advert
      • Help Card: Reviewing CVs
      • Help Card: Preparing and Conducting Structured Interviews
      • Help Card: Preparing and Conducting Remote Working Interviews
    • Team Policies
      • Security Policy
        • Acceptable Use Policy
        • Business Continuity Management
        • Data Usage Policy
        • Document Access Policy
        • Mobile Equipment Policy
        • Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
        • VPN Guide
      • Equal Opportunities
      • Grievance Procedure
      • Disciplinary Procedure
    • Taking time off work
      • Holiday
      • Sickness
    • Peer reviews
    • Mental Health
      • Mental Health Training
      • Mental Health First Aid
      • Returning to work
      • Resources
    • Continuing Professional Development
      • CPD Annual Planning
      • CPD Sprints & Scrums
      • CPD Annual Review
      • CPD Annual Retrospective
  • Our Clients
    • Principles For Building New Client Relationships
    • Researching
    • Connecting
    • Nurturing
    • Assessing
    • Learning and Thinking
    • Pre-qualification questionnaires
    • Proposing
    • Agreeing
    • Beginning
    • Inspiration
  • Our Marketing
    • Content Publishing
      • Git Repository Conventions
      • Help Card: Writing a Case Study
    • Brand Guidelines
      • Content Guidelines
      • Branded Documents and Reports
  • Our Tools
    • Infrastructure
      • External Firewalls
  • Internal Projects
    • How we improve our business
  • Client Projects
    • Delivery Launch
    • Delivery Team
      • Convivio People
      • The Coach
      • User Researcher
      • Other Team Members
    • Digital Strategy
    • Discovery
      • Discovery Briefing
      • Discovery Planning
      • Discovery Modules
      • Discovery Findings
      • Discovery Principles
      • Prepare for prototyping
    • Prototyping
      • Inputs to Prototyping
      • Prototyping Objectives
      • Prototyping Inception
      • Prototyping Sprints
      • Prototyping Outputs
    • Build
      • Inputs to Build
      • Build Kickoff
      • User Stories
      • Backlog Management
      • Backlog Scouting
      • Sprint Planning
      • Sprinting
        • Daily Standup
        • Story Lifecycle
        • Design in Sprints
        • User Testing in Sprints
        • Quality Control in Sprints
      • Sprint Review
      • Sprint Retrospective
    • Service Management
    • Digital Service Standards
      • Delivery Methodologies
        • Scrum
        • Kanban
        • Lean
          • Technical Standards
        • Code Quality
        • Testing
        • Automation
          • Security Standards
          • Quality Standards
          • Risk Standards
    • Delivery Governance
      • Steering Group
      • Risk Management
        • Risk Attitude
        • Assessing Risks
    • Delivery Help Cards
      • Help Card - Sprint Planning
      • Help Card - Sprint Review
      • Help Card - Sprint Retrospective
      • Help Card - Product Owner Feedback
      • Help Card - Common Issues
      • Help Card - Slack
      • Help Card - Github
      • Help Card - Trello
  • Our Recipes
    • Convivio Classic Cocktails
      • Ingredients
      • Tips and Techniques
      • Martini
      • Negroni
      • Manhattan
      • Old Fashioned
    • Potage Dubarry (or, creamy cauliflower soup) with spiced green pepper
    • Roasted Sweet Potato in a Herb and Nut Salad, with Maple Chilli Dressing
    • Aubergine Curry
    • Vegetarian Paella
    • Easy Ice Cream
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On this page
  • 01. Skills & Abilities
  • 02. Qualifications & Experience
  • 03. Character & Personal Qualities
  • 04. Ideal Qualities
  • 05. Persona
  • Don’t be vague
  • But be careful with language
  • Start from the Template
  1. Our Team
  2. Recruitment

Help Card: Writing a Person Profile

A person profile is a simple document. It just describes the kind of person you consider would fit the bill for the roles you need to fill.

There's four areas you should consider when writing a person profile.

01. Skills & Abilities

Describe the abilities you expect your ideal candidate to demonstrate.

Separate them into groups, such as:

  • technical skills;

  • organisational skills;

  • communication skills;

  • creative skills.

You should relate each required skill or ability to specific job tasks.

02. Qualifications & Experience

Education becomes less relevant as a career progresses and people accumulate workplace experience. However, for most positions, the combination of formal education, continuing professional development and job history combine into a set of qualifications and experiences that are necessary for the job. What specific education or course background do you require? What work history do you require?

  • What level of experience (if any) is needed?

  • Is the candidate required to have held a prior job of similar description?

  • Are there specific educational or professional qualifications or accreditations you require?

  • Length of experience gained – in which specific industries, specialisms or departments?

03. Character & Personal Qualities

Consider what sort of personality would fit in with your team. Are specific character traits or ways of working important for the position?

  • Use descriptive words to portray your ideal candidate.

  • Think of traits and habits that would help them complete the job efficiently.

04. Ideal Qualities

What other qualities would you like your employee to display?

  • Include any other areas of the person and job that you have not included.

  • Think laterally in your descriptions.

    • What is the underlying nature of the person and job?

05. Persona

If this personal profile is going to be included in the published job advert, it may be useful summarising the profile above into a persona statement.

Don’t be vague

Be as specific as you can. This will help you and your colleagues at later stages of the recruitment process. If you include some of this in the final job advert, it will also help applicants to understand what the job involves and decide whether they would suit it.

By being specific, you should help to reduce the risk of problems later on after a successful applicant begins working here.

But be careful with language

Although the person profile is primarily an internal document, some of it may be used in the job advert. Be careful to avoid biased or exclusive language. There are some tools online for you to check for biased language.

Start from the Template

PreviousRecruitmentNextHelp Card: Writing a Job Description and Advert

Last updated 6 years ago

There is a Google Doc . Use this as your starting point — make a copy of it, and move your copy into the .. It has sections for the four areas above.

Gender-bias calculator
Eploy: Check my job
Gender decoder for job ads
template for writing a person profile
folder you created at the start of the workflow