Issue #14: Write a Job Description That Attracts the Right People

The Problem

Job descriptions are written by committee. HR adds compliance language. The hiring manager pastes requirements from the last person who held the role. Marketing insists on employer branding paragraphs. The result reads like every other posting on the internet: "fast-paced environment," "team player," "competitive salary." Nobody knows what the job actually involves.

The cost is real. Generic descriptions attract generic applicants. Your recruiters spend 15 hours per role screening people who were never a fit. The candidates you actually want, the ones with options, skip your posting because nothing in it signals that this role is different from the other 40 they scrolled past today.

The fix is not better copywriting. It is better thinking about what the role actually requires, translated into language a qualified person would recognize as describing their next challenge. AI is surprisingly good at this translation. It asks the questions humans skip.

The Fix

Gather the raw inputs. You need three things: the formal job title and level, the actual problems this person will solve in their first 90 days, and the skills that genuinely matter (not the wish list). If you have an existing JD, upload that too.
Paste the main prompt below into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. It rewrites the description around the work, not the company. The output is specific enough that unqualified candidates self-select out and qualified ones recognize the challenge.
Use the optional prompts to refine. The bias check catches exclusionary language you did not intend. The seniority calibration ensures you are not asking for 10 years of experience for a role that needs 3.

Copy-paste prompt

"Rewrite this job description using these rules: (1) Start with the single biggest problem this person will solve in their first 90 days. Not the company mission. Not the team structure. The problem. (2) Replace every generic requirement ('strong communication skills,' 'team player,' 'fast-paced environment') with a specific scenario from the actual role. Instead of 'strong communication skills,' write 'You will present technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders weekly and need to make complex decisions feel simple.' (3) Split requirements into two lists: 'You must have' (real dealbreakers, maximum 5) and 'Bonus if you have' (everything else). If the must-have list exceeds 5 items, force-rank them. (4) Remove all gendered language, unnecessary jargon, and internal acronyms. (5) Add a section called 'What your first 90 days look like' with 3 concrete milestones. (6) End with one honest sentence about the hardest part of this job. Here is the current JD: [paste existing JD or describe the role]"

Optional: bias and inclusion check

"Review this job description for language that might discourage qualified candidates from applying. Specifically check for: (1) Gendered terms or phrases that research shows reduce female applicant rates (e.g., 'ninja,' 'rockstar,' 'aggressive,' 'dominant'). (2) Requirements that are preferences disguised as dealbreakers (e.g., requiring a degree when the role actually needs specific skills). (3) Experience ranges that are inflated beyond what the role needs. (4) Cultural assumptions (e.g., 'must be available for happy hours'). For each issue, explain why it matters and suggest an alternative."

Optional: seniority calibration

"Based on the responsibilities described, what seniority level does this role actually require? Compare the scope of decisions, budget authority, team size, and complexity against industry benchmarks. If the requirements suggest a senior hire but the responsibilities describe a mid-level role (or vice versa), flag the mismatch. Recommend a title and experience range that matches the actual work."

What you get

A job description that leads with the challenge, not the company. Requirements split into genuine dealbreakers and nice-to-haves. A 90-day roadmap that tells candidates exactly what success looks like. Honest language about the hard parts. The kind of posting that a qualified candidate reads and thinks: "That is exactly what I want to work on." Ready in 10 minutes.

Cost

$0 - $20/mo

Time to learn

0 min

Time saved per hire

~8 hours

Why generic JDs cost more than you think

A job posting that attracts 200 unqualified applicants creates 15 to 20 hours of screening work per role. Multiply that across 10 open positions per quarter and your talent team is spending 200 hours just filtering noise. Meanwhile, the candidates you actually want never applied because your posting looked identical to every other company hiring for the same title.

Specificity is a filter. When your description says "You will rebuild our data pipeline from Postgres to a streaming architecture within 90 days," the people who have done that before lean forward. The people who have not move on. You get fewer applications and better ones. Your cost-per-hire drops because you are not paying recruiters to screen people who never had a chance.

The 90-day trick

Most candidates make their decision based on one question: "What will I actually do?" The company history paragraph does not answer it. The benefits list does not answer it. The only section that answers it is a concrete description of what their first 90 days look like.

Three milestones change everything. "By day 30, you will have audited the current process and identified the three biggest bottlenecks. By day 60, you will have shipped the first fix. By day 90, the team will be using the new workflow." Now the candidate knows exactly what they are signing up for. The ones who want that challenge apply. The ones who do not, save everyone time.

The honest ending

Every job has a hard part. The commute. The legacy codebase. The client who calls at 6 PM. Most descriptions hide it. Then new hires discover it at week three and start updating their resume.

One honest sentence at the end builds more trust than ten paragraphs of employer branding. "The hardest part: you will inherit a system built by three different teams over five years, and the documentation is incomplete." The right candidate reads that and thinks: "Good. That is the kind of problem I enjoy solving." The wrong candidate self-selects out before you spend an hour interviewing them.

Works for

Engineering and technical roles (where specificity matters most)
Executive and leadership positions (where the challenge, not the title, attracts talent)
Creative roles (where generic "passionate team player" language repels top talent)
Sales positions (where the territory, quota, and market matter more than "competitive OTE")
Operations and project management roles (where 90-day milestones are natural)
Internal transfers (where the employee already knows the company and just needs the challenge)
Contract and freelance briefs (where scope clarity determines project success)

10 open roles per year × 8 hours saved on screening = ~80 hours back for your talent team
Plus the hires who stay longer because they knew what they were signing up for. The talent was always out there. Now they can recognize your role as the one worth applying to.