How to write a job description that attracts the right candidates

A job description has one job: help the right people recognize themselves and the wrong people self-select out. Most fail in the same two ways — they describe a fantasy hire instead of the actual work, and they demand a requirements list nobody alive fully meets, which filters out precisely the conscientious candidates who take requirements literally. Writing a good one is not a creative exercise; it is an accuracy exercise.

The structure that works

• Title people actually search — "Retail Store Manager," not "Retail Happiness Champion." Search engines and candidates both match on conventional titles.
• Three sentences of honest context — what the company does, what this team does, why the role exists now. Skip the visionary throat-clearing.
• The work itself — five to eight bullets describing what the person will actually do in a normal week, in verbs: run, build, handle, decide. If you cannot list the real tasks, the role is not defined yet — stop writing and define it.
• Requirements, honestly split — must-haves (the three to five things you would genuinely reject over) and nice-to-haves (everything else). Every requirement moved from must to nice widens your funnel with no quality cost.
• Pay and conditions — range, location/remote reality, hours, and anything unusual (weekends, travel, physical demands). Surprises here in the interview waste both sides’ time; surprises after hiring cost you the hire.
• The process — steps, rough timeline, who they will meet. Candidates increasingly discount postings that hide the process, because opaque process predicts opaque employer.

Salary transparency: the argument is over

Post the range. In a growing number of jurisdictions it is required; everywhere else it is simply winning strategy: postings with ranges draw more applicants, filter out mismatches before the first call, and signal an employer that has nothing to hide about pay logic. The classic objection — "current staff will see it" — is an argument for fixing internal pay drift, not for hiding the market rate; your staff can see other companies’ postings regardless.

Language that repels the people you want

• "Rockstar / ninja / wear many hats / fast-paced environment" — reads as understaffed and undefined, because it usually is.
• "Young and energetic team" — an age-discrimination signal (and in many places, liability) that costs you every experienced applicant.
• Requirement inflation — a degree plus five years for a role that needs neither; conscientious candidates obey requirement lists, so inflated lists select for people who ignore instructions.
• Cultures described in adjectives — "we value excellence" says nothing; "store managers control their own rosters" says everything. Show mechanics, not virtues.

Before you publish: the five-minute checklist

Read the draft and ask: Would the person currently doing this job recognize it? Is every must-have genuinely disqualifying? Is the range in? Could a candidate reconstruct a normal Tuesday from the description? And does it say what happens next? Then keep the posting as part of the role’s record — when the hire is made, the description becomes the baseline for onboarding expectations and the first performance review, which is exactly how it connects to the rest of the hiring process.