Write an effective job description, attract the right type of candidates. It sounds like basic math, but when it comes to how to write a job description, it’s actually part art, part science; a bit like baking. Stick with me here.
You need a combination of the right ingredients (i.e. what you want someone to do in a role) with the right technique (i.e. how you talk about the role).
Use the wrong language and you’ll either attract the wrong type of candidates or put everyone off altogether.
For example, a friend recently came across a job description for a two-in-one role. Part marketing executive, part truck cleaner. I wish I was joking but even my overactive imagination couldn’t come up with that.
Particularly when times are tough, people combine roles in sometimes logical but—more often than not—strange ways.
Here are some tips on how to write a job description that will help you reduce time to hire, attract the right candidates, and mean you’re not rehiring in six months’ time.
Get to the point
If you’ve got a lot of fluff at the start of your job description, chances are candidates aren’t going to keep reading.
While you may spend hours considering how to write a job description, the average job seeker only spends an average of 14.6 seconds reading the requirements/qualifications section. That’s the most important part. Get to it fast, and make it easy to find—and read.
If someone thinks they’re qualified for the role, they can then continue to the next part about what your company does and what it’s like to work for you.
Include the salary
One of my pet peeves is companies not putting a salary, or even a salary range, when they decide how to write a job description.
We all know you’ve got a budget. Why waste people’s time by not stating what it is? It reeks of “we’re hoping your suggested salary is below what we want to pay”. And that just sounds shady to everyone. It also now reminds me of this Indeed ad.
Use the right language
The language you use when considering how to write a job description makes a difference in how candidates perceive you. More neutrally-written ones get 42% more responses than those using gendered words.
And, in 2025, there’s really no excuse for using overly gendered words anyway. That’s what tools like ProWritingAid, Grammarly, and basically any AI tool out there can help you identify.
It’s not just the non-inclusive language, either.
Your tone of voice also makes a difference. 76% of job seekers have a positive impression of companies that use a neutral tone, 60% for a casual tone, and 68% for those that use a formal tone.
Your tone should, of course, reflect your brand values. If you’re a brand packed with personality, you should show it when it comes to how to write a job description. It’s an opportunity for you to discourage the people who’d be a poor fit for your company culture before they’ve spent time applying.
Edit your job description
Whether you use AI to create or co-create when it comes to how to write a job description, get a human to edit it after.
And make sure the hiring manager reads it before you post it anywhere. I beseech you.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen jobs on LinkedIn recently that are not just blatantly written by AI because of its writing style, but because there are placeholders still in the job description.
Things like:
- [Company name]
- [Add in responsibilities here]
- [Describe company values]
How little do you value your own job, and your future employees’ time, that you can’t even be bothered to fill in the blanks?
AI is meant to save us time, not make us unable to read a paragraph of text.
As the (not-so-)old saying goes, if you can’t be bothered to write it, why should anyone bother reading it?
Don’t worry about the word count
Sometimes, people obsess over the word count of a piece rather than considering the simple question: does this fulfill its purpose? Sometimes, 100 words will do. Others, it’s 1,000. And at times, it’s 10,000 words or more.
When job descriptions are under 300 words, they get an average of 8.4% more responses.
Now, this could be a good thing.
But it also runs the risk of not filtering through to the right types of candidates quickly enough.
It also means that your ATS won’t have enough criteria to filter candidates against. So people who are the wrong fit are more likely to get through because there aren’t enough keywords in your job description.
42% of businesses have had to rewrite or revise job descriptions due to attracting unqualified candidates. How is this still happening when we have AI? It takes 30 seconds to write a prompt to get it to check the job description for you to help you attract the right types of people.
Don’t want to use AI? You can still Google it!
Or ask someone else from your team to review it.
There’s no excuse for a poor approach to how to write a job description in 2025. Yet it seems to be getting increasingly common instead of less common. Make it make sense.
Conclusion
The way we write job descriptions has changed, along with what businesses expect of their new hires. But what attracts and repels candidates hasn’t changed. They want to know what their responsibilities will be and what your company is all about. So long as you communicate those well, you’re already one step closer to hiring the perfect candidate.
Want to connect your hiring managers and HR teams to even more resources for how to write a job description? Workrowd can help. With a central hub for all your employee resources and initiatives, you can easily equip everyone with the tools to write more accurate and compelling ads for their roles. Ready to learn more ? Get in touch today to schedule time to connect.
