Writing a Job Description That Attracts the Right People
Most job descriptions are bad. They are vague, generic, or written to sound impressive rather than to recruit effectively. Here is what a good one looks like.
The Goal of a Job Description
A job description has two jobs: attract people who would be great, and filter out people who wouldn't. Most descriptions fail at both because they're written to cover all bases rather than to communicate clearly — a long list of generic requirements doesn't protect you, it just produces worse applicants.
Structure That Works
The Eight Parts of a Good Job Description
0/8Common Mistakes
| What to do instead | |
|---|---|
| Too many requirements | Listing 15 "required" skills produces either no applicants or applicants who lie about meeting them. Decide what actually matters. |
| Vague language | "Excellent communication skills required" tells a candidate nothing. "Will present weekly updates to the executive team and write the monthly newsletter" tells them exactly what they're signing up for. |
| Generic culture statements | "Fast-paced, collaborative environment" appears in every posting ever written. Say something specific: "You'll be the third person on our customer success team, reporting directly to our CEO, with full ownership of onboarding." |
| No salary range | Beyond the legal risk covered below, this alone measurably reduces application quality and quantity. |
Pay Transparency: A Legal Requirement in a Growing Number of States
How This Varies by State — and Why It's Changing Fast
This is one of the fastest-moving areas of employment law right now. As of 2026, a large and growing group of states require employers to disclose a salary range directly in job postings — not just on request. This isn't a minor formality: postings that omit a required range, or that use an unreasonably wide range (something like "$50,000–$200,000" for one role) as a way to technically comply while disclosing nothing useful, can both draw enforcement action. The "good faith estimate" standard most states use means the range has to reflect what you'd actually realistically pay, not a number chosen to avoid liability.
What varies by state
- ›Whether the state requires a salary range in job postings at all (a majority of large-population states now do; not all states do)
- ›The employer size threshold that triggers the requirement (as low as 5 employees in some states, 15+ in others)
- ›Whether the requirement applies only to postings, or also to existing employees who ask, or to promotions/transfers
- ›Whether a remote-eligible posting triggers the requirement if it could be filled by someone in a covered state, regardless of where your company is headquartered
Check your state's Department of Labor site for the current requirement, and if you post remote-eligible roles, check every state where an applicant could realistically be based — this is the detail multi-state employers most often miss.
Key Terms
Key Terms
- Pay transparency law
- State laws requiring employers to disclose a salary or wage range, most commonly directly in job postings.
- Good faith estimate
- The legal standard most pay transparency laws use for a posted salary range — it must reflect what you'd realistically pay, not an artificially wide range chosen to avoid disclosing anything useful.
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