A job description does two jobs at once: it has to describe the role honestly, and it has to make a good candidate want to read the next line. Most postings fail on the very first sentence. “We are seeking a highly motivated individual to join our dynamic team” tells a candidate nothing about the actual job, so the strongest applicants, the ones with options, stop reading before they reach the responsibilities section at all.
Make the summary specific, not stock
A summary that works does three small things: it says what the role is, why it exists on the team right now, and what success looks like after a few months. None of that requires flourish, it just requires the actual facts of the role. “Fast-paced environment” and “wear many hats” are not facts; they are what people write when they have not written down the facts yet. If your notes genuinely describe a small, fast-moving team, say that plainly instead of reaching for the phrase.
Do not let requirements become a wishlist
Responsibilities and requirements answer different questions. Responsibilities describe what the person will actually do: the tasks, the ownership, the day-to-day. Requirements describe what a candidate needs in order to do those tasks well. The trap is letting the requirements list grow past that, adding a tool, a certification, or a number of years that would be nice but is not really needed for the job.
That habit costs you candidates. Research on job applications has found that padded requirements lists shrink the applicant pool, and that the effect is not evenly distributed: candidates from some underrepresented groups are more likely to rule themselves out when a posting lists more requirements than the job actually needs, even when they are qualified for the core of the role. The honest fix is simple: only list what the person genuinely needs to do the job, and mark anything else as a clear nice-to-have rather than folding it into the main list.
Keep responsibilities concrete
The same discipline applies to responsibilities. “Wear many hats” and “other duties as assigned” describe nothing; they are what gets written when nobody has actually listed the tasks. If a role genuinely spans a lot of ground, say what that ground is: which systems, which decisions, which meetings. Specific responsibilities also do the recruiting work for you, because a good candidate reads a concrete list and can picture themselves doing it.
Example
Common mistakes
- Opening with “we are seeking a highly motivated individual” instead of saying what the role actually is.
- Vague responsibilities like “wear many hats” that describe nothing a candidate can picture doing.
- Padding requirements with skills that are not actually needed, which quietly filters out strong candidates.
- Writing a posting that reads identically to every other listing for the same title, with nothing specific to this team or this role.