How to write a job description that hires the right person

A job description is not an internal document. It's an external pitch, an internal alignment artefact, and a contractual anchor — in that order, and all three at once. Treat it as any of those alone and you get a thinner result.

As a pitch, it sells the role to the kind of candidate you want — not the kind you'd settle for. As an alignment artefact, it sets the bar the hiring panel calibrates against; without it, two interviewers will end up evaluating two different roles. As an anchor, it sits behind the offer letter and the employment contract; a vague JD produces vague onboarding three months later.

If your draft reads well to the candidate, makes sense to the panel, and survives a careful read by the eventual hire, the document is doing its job. If it does only one of those, rewrite.

Open with a one-paragraph summary that names the outcome of the role, not the activity. "Run the trust-and-safety operation for our consumer product" is a different ad from "oversee daily moderation queues". The first hires a leader; the second hires a manager.

Then: 6 to 8 responsibilities, phrased the way the work is actually done. Avoid verbs like "leverage" and "drive". Use "write", "decide", "build", "defend". 12 bullets is too many — the panel won't remember them and the candidate will skim.

Separate required qualifications from preferred. Required is what the candidate must have to do the work on day 30. Preferred is what would make them excellent in year two. Mixing the two muddies the signal and screens out good candidates.

Add a salary range — the law increasingly requires it in NY, CA, CO, WA, and AU; the practice is required if you want application quality. Pull numbers from a current source (BLS, Payscale, your own band data), not a template.

Close with reporting structure, work pattern (in-person, hybrid, remote), location, and the equal-employment statement that fits your jurisdiction. The last is short but it should be specific to where you operate.

Write to one candidate, not a crowd. Use "you" rather than "the successful candidate". Read every sentence aloud; if it feels stilted, cut it. "Strong communication skills" should become "you can write a clear paragraph and lead a difficult meeting" — the same idea, specific.

Avoid the corporate-stack words: synergy, leverage, ecosystem, dynamic, fast-paced, world-class. Each is read as a flag for vague thinking. A senior candidate notices; a junior one is just confused.

Before you publish, have three people read the draft. The hiring manager (to confirm the responsibilities match the actual scope). One peer of the eventual hire (to flag anything that doesn't reflect the team they'd join). And one person from a different function (to catch jargon that feels normal inside the team but reads as code outside it).

If any reader's first response is "who are we actually hiring?", the summary is wrong. Rewrite the first paragraph until that question doesn't come up.