Job descriptions that attract top talent: a hiring checklist

Use this checklist before any vacancy goes live, and again when a role has been open for three weeks with a thin pile of applicants. Job descriptions are the cheapest part of recruitment to fix and the most neglected. You'll write most of them in a hurry, usually by copying the last one and swapping the job title, and candidates can tell.

The items below are grouped by where the advert tends to go wrong. Work through them with the actual draft open beside you. You won't need every item for every role, but a quick scan will catch the problems that cost you applicants.

Before you write a word

• Talk to the person who does the job now, or did it last. Hiring managers describe the role they wish existed. The person in the seat describes the one that does. Ask them what a bad Tuesday looks like, and put some of that in the advert.

• Decide the three outcomes that make this hire a success. Not ten responsibilities. Three results you'd be pleased with after a year. If you can't name them, candidates can't picture themselves delivering them, and the good ones won't apply to find out.

• Check what the role would pay in the market right now. Salary expectations moved a lot in the last couple of years, and an advert benchmarked on a 2023 hire will quietly miss. The ONS publishes general earnings data, and your own recent offers (accepted and declined) tell you more than any report.

The title and the opening

• Use the title people actually search for. "Marketing Ninja" and "Customer Happiness Hero" feel playful internally. A candidate typing "customer service advisor Leeds" into a job board will never see them. Keep the quirky version for the first line of the advert if you must.

• Put the main point in the first two sentences. What the job is, where it's based, what it pays, whether it's hybrid. Many candidates read the top of an advert and make their decision there. Burying the salary under four paragraphs about your mission is a choice, and it's usually the wrong one.

• Write the company paragraph last, and keep it short. Two or three sentences on what you do and who you do it for. A candidate scanning a dozen tabs doesn't need your founding story. They need to know whether the job is worth another minute.

The role itself

• List responsibilities as things the person will do, in plain verbs. "Manage the monthly close for four entities" beats "responsible for financial reporting activities". Specific tasks tell a candidate whether they've done this work before, which is the question they're really asking.

• Keep the responsibilities list to roughly six bullets. Past that, it reads as a wishlist for three people. If the role truly covers that much ground, that's a different problem and an advert won't solve it.

• Say what a normal week looks like, including the dull bits. If a third of the job is chasing approvals or reconciling spreadsheets, say so. Candidates who accept a role that turns out different to the advert leave in months, and you're back at the start.

Requirements and the people you're shutting out

• Split "essential" from "desirable", and mean it. Research and plenty of recruiter experience suggest some candidates, women in particular, tend to apply only when they meet nearly every listed requirement. A long essential list quietly narrows your pool before anyone has applied. Ask of each line: would we really reject someone without this?

• Drop the degree requirement unless the role legally needs one. For regulated work (a solicitor, a registered nurse, a chartered accountant) the qualification is the point. For most other roles, "degree or equivalent experience" widens the pool without lowering the standard.

• Cut the years-of-experience numbers. "Five years of experience" says nothing about whether someone can do the job. Describe the level of responsibility instead, such as having led a small team or owned a budget.

• Run the wording past the Equality Act. Phrases like "digital native", "young and dynamic" or "recent graduate" can signal age bias, and the Equality Act 2010 covers recruitment as well as employment. If you're building an inclusive hiring process more widely, OHUB's diversity hiring resources are a decent starting point.

Pay, flexibility and the deal

• Publish a salary range, and make it a real one. Candidates skip adverts without pay, and a range that's £30,000 wide reads as evasive. A tight band, say £42,000 to £48,000, tells people you've thought about it. Roles that stay vague on pay tend to attract fewer applications and more awkward conversations later.

• State the working pattern plainly. "Hybrid, two days in the Manchester office" is useful. "Flexible working available" is not, because it could mean anything. Since the Employment Rights Act's changes to flexible working requests, candidates are asking sharper questions, so answer them upfront.

• Name the benefits that change a decision. Pension contribution, holiday, training budget, progression routes. Skip "free fruit" and "dynamic culture". If you want to see how other employers frame this, the CIPD publishes guidance on inclusive and effective recruitment practice.

The process

• Tell candidates what happens after they apply. Two interview stages, a short task, a decision within two weeks. Uncertainty puts off exactly the people with other offers on the table, and they're usually the ones you want.

• Make applying easy. If it takes 25 minutes and a re-typed CV, strong passive candidates won't bother. Test your own application form on your phone. Some firms now ask for a short video introduction instead of a cover letter, which OHUB's employer tools support, and it can show you more of someone than a CV bullet list does.

A simple template to adapt

A structure that works for most roles, in this order: job title and location, salary and working pattern, two sentences on the job and why it exists, six bullets on what the person will do, a short essential and desirable list, benefits, and the hiring process. Write it in the second person ("you'll lead...") and it reads like an invitation rather than a policy document.

Try this opening line and adjust it: "You'll run the day-to-day operations for our Bristol team, working with a small group of six, for £38,000 to £42,000 with two days a week from home."

The item most people skip

Get someone outside the hiring team to read the advert cold. Not HR, not the manager, not you. Someone who doesn't know the role and has no stake in it. Ask them one question: would you apply, and if not, what put you off? Jargon, internal acronyms and wishful requirements all show up in about three minutes, and it's the step nearly everyone drops because the vacancy is urgent.

This week, pick one live job description and send it to a colleague in a different department with that single question. Read the answer before you change anything.