How to Write Job Descriptions That Attract the Right People
A job description is the first interaction most candidates have with an organisation. It is a piece of copywriting as much as it is an administrative document, and it should be written with that dual purpose in mind. The job descriptions that attract the wrong candidates — or no candidates — share common failure modes: they describe duties rather than outcomes, list requirements that the role does not actually require, use corporate language that sounds like it was written by committee, and give candidates no real sense of the role, the team, or why someone would want this job.
Start with what the person will actually achieve, not what they will do day-to-day. "Manage a portfolio of enterprise accounts" tells a candidate what they will be doing. "Own the retention and growth of our twenty highest-value accounts, generating £4m in recurring revenue" tells them what they will achieve and what the stakes are. Outcome-first job descriptions attract candidates who think in results and who genuinely want the challenge being described. Duty-first descriptions attract candidates who are comparing lists of tasks across multiple applications.
Requirements should be genuinely required. The practice of listing qualifications, years of experience, and technical skills that look comprehensive but do not reflect what the role actually needs creates unnecessary barriers. Degree requirements for roles that do not require degree-level analysis exclude capable candidates. "Five to ten years of experience" for roles that could be performed by someone with three years of focused experience narrows the field without benefit. Audit every requirement against a simple test: would we reject someone who is otherwise perfect for this role because they lack this? If the answer is no, remove it.
The employer value proposition — why someone would want this role and this organisation — should be in the job description, not on a separate "about us" page that candidates may not read. What does the team look like? What is the opportunity for growth? What is genuinely differentiated about working here? These elements are not padding — they are what determines whether a candidate who can do the job also wants to apply for it. Candidates with options, the ones you most want to hire, are selective. They need to understand not just what the role is but whether this is the right place for their career.
Language matters more than most hiring teams realise. Research consistently shows that certain language patterns in job descriptions correlate with the demographic profile of applicants. Job descriptions that use more "masculine-coded" language — competitive, dominant, decisive — attract fewer women applicants without any improvement in role-fit accuracy. Audit your language for unnecessary patterns and test whether neutral alternatives perform better.
The application process described in the job description affects conversion. A process described as "submit your CV, complete a technical assessment, attend two interview stages and a panel presentation" will lose candidates who are currently employed, have caring responsibilities, or are evaluating multiple options. If the process is genuinely this complex, understand the conversion cost. If it is not always this complex, describe what it usually involves.
Mellow's recruitment module connects job description templates with applicant tracking, ensuring that the requirements entered in the job description become the criteria against which candidates are assessed. When the same role is posted multiple times, HR teams can maintain consistent requirement standards rather than allowing each hiring manager to write their own version from scratch. Consistency across postings reduces the risk of adverse impact claims and improves the quality of comparison at shortlisting.