How to Write a Job Description (+ Free Job Description Generator)

Most job descriptions were never written to attract anyone.

They started as an internal requisition, written to get a role signed off by a finance team, then got posted word for word. That is why so many of them open with three paragraphs about the company and close with a list of twelve requirements nobody meets.

The candidate you most want is not reading it. They are employed, not looking, and they will give the first two lines about four seconds.

This post covers how to write a job description, plus a free job description generator to draft the first version for you.

What a job description is actually for

It has two jobs, and they pull in different directions.

The first is filtering: setting out what the role involves clearly enough that the wrong people rule themselves out. The second is selling: giving the right person a reason to reply when they were not looking for a new job this morning.

A description that filters without selling produces a small pile of applicants who were going to apply to anything, which is the most common failure and the hardest to spot, because the inbox still fills up.

The structure that works

Open with the problem the role exists to solve

Not the company history. The first two lines should say what is broken, growing, or being built, and what this person will own.

“We have doubled revenue in two years on a finance team of three, and reporting has become the bottleneck” tells a strong candidate more than a paragraph about company values, because it tells them what their first six months look like.

Write responsibilities as outcomes

“Manage the reporting process” is an activity. “Own month-end close and cut it from twelve days to five” is an outcome, and it is the version that lets a good candidate picture themselves doing the job.

Four to six outcomes is enough. A list of eleven duties reads like a role nobody has thought about properly.

Split the requirements into real and imagined

Take the requirements list and mark each one: would you reject an otherwise excellent candidate for missing this?

Most lists survive that test at about half their length. The rest are preferences that have been promoted to requirements, and they cost you applications from exactly the people who would have been good, because strong candidates read a requirements list literally and weaker ones do not.

Say what the pay is

A range costs nothing to include and removes the largest single reason a candidate does not reply. If the client will not publish one, that is worth knowing at the intake meeting rather than after three weeks of silence.

Close with the process

How many stages, who they meet, how long it takes. Candidates who are not actively looking are deciding whether this is worth the disruption, and a vague process reads as a long one.

What to cut

• The company boilerplate at the top. Move it to the bottom. Nobody has ever accepted a role because of the paragraph about the founding story, and it is occupying the only space that gets read.
• The twelve-item requirements list. Covered above, and worth repeating because it is the single most common fault.
• “Rockstar”, “ninja”, “wear many hats.” The first two signal nothing. The third signals an unclear role, and experienced candidates read it exactly that way.
• Anything you cannot assess. If “excellent communication skills” is in the description but there is no stage in the process that tests it, it is decoration. The interview scorecard is where a requirement either becomes real or gets dropped.

Where it lives changes how it performs

The same description performs very differently depending on the channel, and the gap is larger than most firms expect.

Recruiterflow’s data across 2,100+ firms shows candidates sourced from a firm’s own website convert from source to submission at 11.94% and from interview to hire at 47.39%. Through LinkedIn, the same stages run at 5.11% and 17.36% (Source: The Economics of Recruiting).

LinkedIn is a volume channel and your own site is a value channel. That is a reason to treat the description on your own job page as the canonical version and put the work into it, rather than writing for the job board first and copying outward.

A checklist before it goes out

• Read the first two lines only. Would someone who is not looking keep reading?
• Count the requirements. Would you genuinely reject a strong candidate for each one?
• Check every responsibility is an outcome rather than an activity.
• Confirm the salary range is there, or that you have a specific reason it is not.
• Confirm every stated requirement has a stage in the process that tests it.

Draft the first version in a minute

Writing the first draft from a blank page is the slowest part, and it is the part worth automating.

Recruiterflow’s AI job description generator is free to use: give it the role, the level and the context, and it produces a structured draft you can edit rather than a blank document you have to fill. If you would rather start from a proven format for a specific role, the job description templates cover the common ones.

Either way the editing is the job. The generator removes the blank page; the outcomes, the honest requirements list and the salary range are still yours to get right.

See what your firm’s job pages look like when every description is built from the same structure, and book a demo to walk through it.

FAQs

How do you write a good job description?

Open with the problem the role exists to solve, list four to six outcomes rather than activities, cut the requirements to the ones you would actually reject for, publish the salary range, and describe the interview process. Company background goes at the end, not the start.

How long should a job description be?

Long enough to cover outcomes, real requirements, pay and process, which is usually 300 to 500 words. Length is rarely the problem; the order is, because the parts a candidate needs are usually buried under company boilerplate.

Should a job description include salary?

Yes wherever possible. A published range removes the most common reason a passive candidate does not reply, and in a growing number of jurisdictions it is a legal requirement rather than a choice.

What is the difference between a job description and a job posting?

A job description is the internal document defining the role, its outcomes and its requirements. A job posting is the candidate-facing version written to attract applications, and posting the description unedited is what produces most weak job ads.

How many requirements should a job description list?

Usually five or six. Apply one test to each: would you reject an otherwise excellent candidate for missing it? Anything that fails that test is a preference, and listing it costs you applications from strong candidates who read the list literally.

Can AI write a job description?

It can write a solid first draft from a role, level and some context, which removes the slowest part of the work. The judgement calls, which outcomes matter, which requirements are real and what the range should be, still need a person who knows the client.