Your job description is often the first impression a potential candidate has of your business. Get it right, and you’ll find the best talent applying to work with you. Get it wrong, and you’ll be making the process more difficult for yourself than it needs to be.
Many businesses treat job descriptions as an admin task, something to be written quickly and forgotten about until the next vacancy comes up. But a well-crafted job description is one of the most underrated recruitment tools available to you.
Done well, it filters in the right candidates, filters out the wrong ones, and sells your business, all before you’ve spoken to a single applicant.
In this guide, we’ll cover why job descriptions matter more than most businesses realise, the most common mistakes that cost time and talent, what makes a good job description, how to use AI responsibly in the process, and, of course, practical steps you can follow to get it right every time.
Job Descriptions Matter More Than You Think
When a candidate reads your job description, they’re evaluating your business as well as the role in front of them.
Strong candidates have options. A confusing or vague description doesn’t make them work harder to understand the role; it makes them move on to the next opportunity. Your job description is your employer brand in action, and it deserves the same care and attention as anything else you’d put your name to.
Beyond first impressions, job descriptions also exist to set expectations. They help candidates self-select appropriately, meaning the people who apply are the people who understand what the role actually involves.
Misaligned expectations (where someone joins thinking the role is one thing and discovers it’s another) can quickly lead to early turnover, and the cost of hiring someone who leaves within six months is substantial.
A vague description creates a wide, unhelpful recruitment funnel that leaves you with lots of applications, but few from the candidates you need. A clear and specific description, on the other hand, creates a focused funnel of suitable candidates, saving your time and theirs.
The Most Common Job Description Mistakes
Here’s where many businesses go wrong, and where it ends up costing them.
Mistake #1: The description doesn’t reflect the actual role. This error is one of the most damaging mistakes a business can make (and unfortunately, it’s more common than you’d think).
It usually happens when HR teams or senior leaders write descriptions without meaningful input from the people doing the work. The result is a description that sounds plausible but doesn’t accurately capture what the role involves day-to-day.
Candidates arrive for interviews, or worse, start the job, only to discover the reality looks nothing like what they signed up for.
Mistake #2: Being too vague. Phrases like “must be a self-starter”, “other duties as required”, and “excellent communication skills” have appeared in so many job descriptions that they’ve become almost meaningless. They tell candidates nothing specific about what the role involves or what you need from the person doing it.
Vague descriptions generate high application volumes but low-quality matches. Candidates can’t self-select appropriately if they don’t understand what the role actually involves.
Mistake #3: Copying and pasting old descriptions. Roles evolve. The person who left six months ago may have done the job very differently from how it needs to be done now.
Using last time’s description saves time in the short term, but attracts candidates suited to what the role used to be, not what it is now.
Mistake #4: Unrealistic requirements. Think asking for five years of experience for an entry-level role or listing ten “essential” competencies when four would do just fine.
The consequence is that strong candidates don’t apply either because they don’t tick every box or because they’re put off by what seem to be unreasonable requirements.
Mistake #5: Neglecting the candidate experience. Every person who reads your job description forms an impression of your business, including the people you don’t hire.
A description that’s purely transactional or poorly written leaves candidates feeling your business is disorganised or doesn’t value its people.
What Goes Into a Good Job Description?
There’s no single template that works for every role or every organisation, but the strongest job descriptions do have a few things in common.
A clear, accurate job title.
The title should accurately reflect what the role is, using language candidates will recognise and search for.
Some businesses use titles that mean something inside the organisation but nothing to anyone outside it, such as “People Experience Lead” or “Growth Catalyst.” Avoid internal jargon or inflated titles designed to sound impressive. If someone searches for this type of role online, would they find yours?
An introduction to your business.
Include a brief, human overview of who you are and what makes your business distinctive; Candidates want to understand who they’d be working for.
If there is something distinctive about your culture, such as strong progression or an unusual mission, this is where to mention it. Not buried in the benefits section, but right at the start, where it shapes how candidates read everything that follows.
A clear role summary.
Some job descriptions jump straight from the company introduction into a list of responsibilities, and this is a significant missed opportunity.
Candidates want to understand the context of the role they might apply for. Is this a new role or a replacement? Is it predominantly strategic or operational?
This gives candidates context that helps them understand whether the role is right for them before they’ve read a single bullet point.
Specific responsibilities.
This is where many descriptions fall apart.
The typical responsibilities section looks something like this:
- Manage relationships with key stakeholders.
- Support the delivery of strategic objectives.
- Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement.
- Other duties as required.
This list doesn’t tell candidates much about what the role will entail or what success in their role will look like. The key here is clarity and specificity.
Here’s what those same responsibilities look like when they’re written with these two principles in mind:
Instead of “Manage relationships with key stakeholders”, Write “Manage a portfolio of 20 client accounts, meeting with each client quarterly”.
Instead of “Support the delivery of strategic objectives”, Write “Work with the Head of Operations to implement our new CRM system across three departments by Q3”.
Instead of “Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement”, Write “Lead monthly team retrospectives and present one process improvement recommendation per quarter to the Operations Manager”.
Instead of “Other duties as required”, Remove it entirely (if you’re feeling brave enough!). If the role genuinely involves varied tasks, describe the most common ones.
Be specific enough that candidates can genuinely picture themselves in the role, because the ones who can picture it and like what they see are exactly who you want applying.
Requirements that are genuinely required.
Separate essential from desirable clearly, and only include what the role actually needs.
Ask yourself whether each requirement is truly necessary or simply convention, and be mindful of requirements that could inadvertently disadvantage certain groups of candidates.
Salary and benefits, stated clearly.
There’s an ongoing debate about whether to include salary in job descriptions. Our view is that, where possible, you should include this information (even if it’s a range).
Transparency here builds trust and saves time, yours and the candidates’. Nobody should reach the final interview stage before finding out whether they can afford to take the job.
Pay benchmarking can help ensure your offer is competitive for the role and the market. And don’t forget to highlight the benefits that come with working with you. If you have a strong perks package, this is the place to mention it.
What the process looks like. How many interview stages are involved? What’s the likely timeline? What should candidates expect? Sharing this information demonstrates respect for candidates’ time and signals that your hiring process is organised and considerate.
Using AI in Job Description Writing
AI tools are increasingly being used to help write job descriptions, and it’s easy to see the appeal. They can generate a polished-looking draft quickly, saving a lot of time and effort.
However, the fundamental problem with AI-generated descriptions is that AI doesn’t know your business, your team, your culture, or the specific nuances of the role you’re hiring for. It produces content based on patterns from across the internet, which means the output tends to be generic. Polished, perhaps. But hollow in the ways that matter most.
As we explored in our recent article on AI in recruitment, AI works best as a tool that supports human judgement rather than replaces it. If you hand the job description entirely to an AI, you’ll likely end up with something that could have been written for any business, any team, anywhere. That’s not going to attract the specific people you need.
The right approach is to do the thinking yourself first, then use AI to help with structure or checking for gaps you might have missed. Review and edit heavily for authenticity and accuracy before anything gets posted.
Practical Steps to Get It Right
Knowing what good looks like is one thing, but here’s how you can actually get there.
Step 1: Brief the right people. Before you write a single word, talk to the person currently doing the role or their direct manager. Build an understanding of what the role involves day-to-day by asking what success looks like and what they wish they’d known before starting. This conversation is the most valuable input you’ll get.
Step 2: Start with the role, not a template. Templates provide a useful structure, but they’re not a starting point for content. Every role is different, and every description should reflect that. Resist the temptation to copy a previous description and make minimal changes. It usually shows, and it usually costs you.
Step 3: Write for your ideal candidate. Who are you actually trying to reach? A good description anticipates and answers the questions that your ideal candidate will likely have, making it easier for the right people to say yes.
Step 4: Review before posting. Have someone who knows the role check it for accuracy. Proofread carefully, because typos and errors signal carelessness, which is not the impression you want to create. Check for inadvertently exclusionary language. Then, ask yourself honestly: would the ideal candidate for this role read this and feel genuinely excited to apply? If not, keep working.
Step 5: Treat it as a living document. Job descriptions aren’t one-and-done. Review them every time a vacancy arises and update them to reflect how roles have evolved. If a hire doesn’t work out, consider whether the description contributed to the mismatch and use that insight to improve the next version.
Your Job Description Is Worth Getting Right
Writing a good job description isn’t complicated, but it does require time and attention, more than a lot of businesses may realise.
The people you’re trying to hire are making a significant decision about their working lives, and your job description is often the first signal they get about whether your business is worth that decision.
So, before you post your next job description, ask yourself one question: would the right person for this role read this and know it was for them?
If the answer is anything other than a confident yes, it needs more work.
If you’d like support building recruitment processes that attract and retain the right people, our recruitment and retention support is here to help. Or if you’re not sure where to start, get in touch. We’re here to make hiring simpler, clearer, and more effective for your business.