Why your job description is costing you the best candidates

Most startup job descriptions are written in an afternoon by copying a competitor’s posting and swapping the company name. Then founders wonder why the applicants feel generic. The posting is not paperwork. For most candidates it is the first and only impression of your company, and the strongest people read it far more critically than you think.

Lead with the problem, not the requirements

Great candidates are shopping for problems, not titles. Open with what is actually broken or unbuilt, why it matters to the business, and what will be different in a year if this person is excellent. That paragraph does more recruiting work than the entire responsibilities list underneath it.

Cut the requirements list in half

A wall of twelve required qualifications does not raise your bar, it narrows your pool. Strong candidates who meet eight of twelve routinely skip the application, and that effect is sharpest among exactly the people most teams say they want more of. Name the three things that genuinely matter and let the rest be nice to have.

Say what the first ninety days look like

Specificity is the most underrated trust signal in a posting. What will this person own in month one, month two, month three. Who will they work with. What does success look like at the end of the quarter. Candidates read vagueness as a sign that the role has not been thought through, and they are usually right.

Publish the range

Postings without a range get fewer and worse applicants, and every conversation that follows starts with a negotiation instead of the work. Publishing a real range also saves you from spending three weeks on someone you were never going to be able to hire.

Write like a person

Cut rockstar, ninja, work hard play hard and wear many hats. Cut the sentence about being a fast paced dynamic environment. Say the true version instead. We are eleven people, the roadmap changes monthly, and you will have more ownership than you have ever had. The right candidate reads that and leans in.

A good job description is not a legal document, it is the first sales conversation you have with someone who might change your company. Treat it that way and the quality of your inbound changes within a week.