Write a Job Description That Attracts the Right People

You've posted the job three times now. Same title, same bullet points copied from a template someone found online. You're getting forty applications and maybe two people who could actually do the role. The other thirty-eight either can't do the job or wouldn't want it if they understood what it actually involves.

That's usually not a sourcing problem. It's a writing problem. Most job descriptions are written to sound impressive, not to filter accurately. Here's how to fix that.

Start with the moment, not the mission statement

Skip the paragraph about your company's exciting journey. Nobody reads it, and the people who do are usually the wrong people — they're responding to the tone, not the job. Open instead with the actual work:

> "You'll spend most of your week reconciling supplier invoices, chasing three departments for missing PO numbers, and closing the books by the 5th of the month."

That one sentence does more filtering than any amount of "dynamic team player" language. Someone who hates chasing paperwork will self-select out immediately. Someone who's good at exactly that will recognise themselves in it and apply with confidence.

Write the requirements you'll actually check, not the ones that sound safe

Most requirements lists are defensive — added because a past hire lacked something, or because it feels risky to leave them out. The result is a wishlist nobody meets, which either scares off good candidates or trains everyone to lie a little.

Before you write the requirements section, separate two things:

1. What you will genuinely test or verify — a skill, a certification, a language, a tool.
2. What you're hoping for but won't check — "strong communicator," "passionate about X."

Cut most of category 2. If you can't verify it, it's not a requirement — it's a wish, and it belongs in a "nice to have" line at most, not the headline requirements.

For category 1, be concrete:

• Bad: "Strong Excel skills."
• Better: "Comfortable building a pivot table and VLOOKUP from a raw export without a tutorial."

The second version tells the right person "yes, that's me" and tells the wrong person "I should probably not waste my afternoon on this application." That's the whole job of a requirements list — not to impress, to filter.

Say the number, or say why you won't

If you're comfortable publishing a salary range, do it — it cuts down applications from people who'd walk away at the offer stage anyway. If you're not ready to publish one, at least decide it internally before you post the job. Nothing wastes more time on both sides than three interview rounds ending in a number nobody said out loud until the end.

Describe the person who'll be unhappy here

This feels backwards, but it's one of the most useful sentences you can write. Every job is wrong for some kind of good, capable person. Name that person:

> "This role suits someone who likes a fixed, predictable routine. If you thrive on variety and change day to day, you'll find this frustrating."

You're not scaring people off for no reason — you're saving both sides an interview that was never going to end well. A job description that only lists who's a fit leaves out half the useful information.

Cut the adjective pile-up

Read your draft and count the adjectives with no evidence behind them: "driven," "detail-oriented," "self-starter," "passionate," "innovative." These words describe how you'd like the candidate to see themselves, not anything you can measure. Everyone thinks they're detail-oriented. Delete the adjective and replace it with the behaviour:

• Instead of "detail-oriented": "catches numbers that don't reconcile before they become a client's problem."
• Instead of "self-starter": "comfortable deciding what to work on next without daily direction, because for the first three months you'll mostly be working alone."

Put the practical stuff where people can actually find it

A lot of good candidates get lost not because the job is wrong for them, but because they can't tell from your posting whether basic logistics work. Include, plainly, near the top or bottom:

• Where the work happens (office, hybrid, fully remote, and if remote — which time zones overlap is required)
• Working hours, especially if there's shift work or weekend coverage
• What the hiring process looks like and roughly how long it takes

This last one matters more than people think. "Two interviews and a short skills exercise, usually within two weeks" tells a serious candidate you respect their time. It also quietly filters out anyone hoping to skip steps.

Decide what you'll test for, before you write what you're looking for

Here's the trap: it's easy to write "strong analytical skills" into a job description and much harder to actually find out, in an interview, whether someone has them. If a skill matters enough to put in the posting, decide now how you'll check it later — a work sample, a short structured test, a specific interview question with a real example attached. Tools like AssessFit exist for exactly this gap, so the skills you list are ones you can actually verify rather than ones you're hoping show up in conversation. But the tool doesn't matter if the job description promised something you never planned to check.

A short list before you post

• Would someone doing this job today recognise their own week in your description?
• Can you defend every requirement as something you'll actually verify?
• Have you said the pay range, or decided deliberately not to and why?
• Did you tell people who this job is wrong for, not just who it's right for?
• Does the posting say how long the process takes and what it involves?

A job description that filters honestly will get you fewer applicants. That's the point. Forty applications where two are real is worse than twelve applications where six are real — even though the second number feels smaller.