How to write a job post that gets good applications

A job post has one job: help the right people apply and help the wrong people not bother. Most posts do neither, which is why the usual complaint is "we got 200 applications and none of them were any good."

Two hundred applications is not a sign of reach. It is usually a sign the post did not say enough for anyone to rule themselves out.

Put the pay in

This is the single highest-impact change, and the most resisted.

The objection is usually that it limits negotiation or upsets existing staff. The cost is that the strongest candidates — who have options and limited time — filter out posts without a range, and you never learn they existed. You are not avoiding the conversation; you are having it only with people who had nothing better to do.

A range is fine. "£28,000–£34,000 depending on experience" is enough. So is "$25–35/hour."

If you genuinely cannot publish a number, say what it depends on. Silence reads as "below market," because for most posts it is.

Say where the person has to be

"Remote" means at least four different things, and the gap between them wastes an enormous amount of people's time:

• Remote, anywhere
• Remote within a country
• Remote within a few hours of a particular timezone
• Remote but you will be asked in once a month

Somebody in Lagos applying to a role that was only ever open to the EU has spent an hour on an application that was never possible, and they usually find out after the interview. State the rule plainly:

Remote. You can work from anywhere, but we need at least four hours overlapping 9am–5pm GMT.

That sentence saves more wasted effort than anything else in the post.

Describe the work, not the adjectives

Most job posts describe a personality. Candidates cannot assess themselves against a personality, so everybody applies.

Replace this:

• Fast-paced environment
• Wear many hats
• Rockstar/ninja/guru
• Must be a self-starter with excellent communication skills

With this:

• You will own the weekly customer newsletter end to end, from draft to send
• You will handle around 30 support emails a day, most of them about delivery
• You will take the first call with new enquiries and qualify them before passing on

A candidate reading the second list knows whether they want the job. That is the entire point.

Separate what you need from what you would like

The standard post lists twelve requirements, of which four are real. The effect is well documented and asymmetric: candidates who meet most of them still apply, and candidates who meet most of them *but doubt themselves* do not. You systematically lose people who would have been good.

Two headings fix it:

Essential — three or four things, each of which would genuinely stop someone doing the job.

Nice to have — everything else, and mean it.

Then audit the essential list. "Degree required" for a role that does not use one. "Five years' experience" for work that takes eighteen months to learn. Each of these removes real candidates and buys you nothing.

Say what happens next

Most applications go into silence, and most candidates expect it. Saying otherwise is a competitive advantage that costs nothing:

We read every application. You will hear from us within a week either way. If we move forward it is a 30-minute call, then a paid two-hour task, then a final conversation.

This does three things: it tells people how much effort to invest, it sets a deadline you then have to meet, and it signals that you treat applicants like people. Candidates notice. They talk to each other.

The only rule is that you have to do what you said. A promise to reply in a week that you break is worse than not making it.

A structure that works

1. One line on what the company does — plainly, without the mission statement
2. The role in two sentences
3. What you will actually do — five to eight bullets of real tasks
4. Essential — three or four
5. Nice to have — the rest
6. Pay, hours, location terms
7. How to apply and what happens after

Three hundred to five hundred words. Longer is not more thorough; it is just longer.

The test before you publish

Read it as a candidate who would be excellent at the job but has never heard of you. Can they tell what they would do on a Tuesday, whether they can afford to take it, whether they are allowed to apply from where they live, and what happens after they press send?

If any of those is a no, that is the edit worth making.

Ready to write one? Post a job. If you want to see how others in your field have written theirs, browse the board first — the good ones are easy to spot once you know what to look for.