A job description is usually treated as paperwork, something to get approved so the search can start. In practice it’s the first and often only sales pitch a company makes to the person it most wants to hire, and it fails more often than anyone realizes because nobody ever hears from the candidates who read it and moved on.
Let’s start with the most common problem: the wish list. Ten years of experience, three certifications, five systems, education, and a salary that sometimes doesn’t fit. Requirements lists tend to grow by committee, with every stakeholder adding a must-have until the described person becomes a unicorn. The result isn’t a higher bar, it’s a smaller pool, and the strongest candidates are the quickest to self-select out because they can afford to. Anyone who’s ever seen a posting demand more years of experience than the technology has existed knows the pattern.
Then comes the vagueness problem, which is the opposite failure. Postings assembled from internal HR language, “supports cross-functional initiatives,” “owns the end-to-end process,” tell a candidate nothing about the actual work, the team size, the systems in use, or who they’d report to. A specialist reading that can’t tell whether the role is a step up or a step sideways, and when the answer isn’t obvious, most don’t inquire. They keep scrolling.
A few smaller things that quietly cost applications. Titles nobody searches for, because a clever internal title means the posting never surfaces in the searches candidates actually run. No compensation information, which in many markets now means the posting is skipped outright, and in some states is a legal problem. Walls of unbroken text on a page that most people are reading on a phone. And a tone that describes what the company wants without a word about what the candidate gets.
Now the honest counterpoint: a great job description won’t rescue a weak opportunity, and plenty of roles get filled despite mediocre postings, especially in soft markets or well-known companies. The posting matters most in exactly the situation where hiring is hardest, a competitive market, a specialized role, an employer the candidate hasn’t heard of. That’s when every line is doing work.
What actually helps is unglamorous. Separate the true must-haves from the nice-to-haves and be honest about which is which. Describe the work concretely: what this person does in a typical week, what they own, who they work with. Use the title the market uses. Include the range. Lead with why the role is worth someone’s attention rather than with the requirements. And read it once as if you were the candidate you’re hoping to attract.
A posting that reads like it was written for the candidate rather than for the approval process fills faster, every time.
