Job posting
A job posting is the public advert for an open role. What a candidate reads before deciding to apply — often the only view of your company before the click.
Most job postings get edited for grammar and never edited for the candidate. That gap is where applications are lost.
What goes into a job posting
The minimum a candidate needs to decide whether to apply:
- The role. Title that reflects what the person will do, not the internal HR title.
- The team. Who they will work with, day to day.
- The work. Three to five concrete things they will be doing in the first 90 days.
- The criteria. What you actually need them to have done before, written as outcomes, not as years.
- The compensation. A salary band. Not “competitive.”
- The location and arrangement. Office, hybrid, remote — be specific about days and timezones.
- The process. How many interviews, who they will meet, the expected timeline.
Most job postings include three of these. The strongest ones include all seven.
What separates a posting that works
Two patterns show up in postings that produce applications from people you’d actually hire:
- Specific over general. “Build the onboarding flow for new SMB customers in our German market” beats “responsible for customer onboarding.” Specificity self-selects.
- A real salary band. Postings with a band get 60-80% more qualified applications. Postings without a band attract people who’ll apply to anything.
The opposite patterns — buzzword soup, “ideal candidate” lists of 18 bullets, no compensation — produce applications from the wrong shape of candidate.
What to leave out
- “Ninja,” “rockstar,” “guru.” Self-disqualifies the people who read job postings critically.
- Eighteen-bullet requirement lists. Anyone who has 18 of 18 doesn’t need this job. Cut to five must-haves.
- “Other duties as assigned.” Tells the candidate the role is undefined.
- An “About the company” intro that runs four paragraphs. Move it to the end or strip it.
Job posting vs. job description
Two different documents. A job description is internal — the role’s responsibilities, level, scope, used for compensation calibration and performance review. A job posting is the public-facing distillation written for one purpose: get the right person to apply.