How to write a job post people actually respond to

Most job posts are written for the company that posts them: a list of demands, a wall of bullet points, and a paragraph of boilerplate at the end. The people you want to hire skim them in about six seconds. Here is a structure that survives the skim.

Start with the reader, not the role

The first two lines are the whole game. Job boards truncate everything else, and most candidates never tap through. So do not open with "XYZ Company is a leading provider of..." Nobody applies to a job because the company calls itself leading.

Open with the one thing the right candidate wants to hear. For a sales role, that might be what a good month pays. For an admin role, it might be stability and a manager who is organized. For a trade, it might be the schedule. You know what your best people care about. Say that first.

Write the first sentence for the person you want, not the company you have.

A structure that works

You do not need to be clever. You need to be clear and quick. This five-part structure fits almost any role:

1. The hook. One or two sentences on the single best thing about this job.
2. The day to day. Three to five bullets describing what the person will actually do. Verbs, not nouns. "Call 30 warm leads a day" beats "Responsible for outbound telephony initiatives."
3. What it takes. Only the requirements that would truly disqualify someone. If you would still interview a great person without it, it is a preference, not a requirement. Move it or cut it.
4. What you get. Pay, schedule, benefits, growth. Concrete beats vague every time.
5. How to apply. One step. Tell them exactly what happens next and how fast.

Talk about pay like a person

Posts that state compensation get dramatically more applications than posts that hide it, and the applicants are better matched because people self-select. If the number varies, give the honest range and say what drives it. And frame it positively: describe what the role pays and how, not what it does not.

Cut the requirements list in half

Long requirement lists do not filter out weak candidates. They filter out careful ones. Research on application behavior has shown for years that many qualified people, especially women, skip roles where they do not meet every listed item. Meanwhile the spray-and-pray applicants ignore your list entirely.

Go through your list and ask of each line: has anyone ever actually been rejected for this? If not, it is decoration. Delete it.

Small things that quietly matter

• Job title: use the words a candidate would search, not your internal title. "Office Manager" gets found. "Operations Ninja II" does not.
• Location and schedule up top. These are filters people apply first. Do not make them dig.
• Paragraphs of two to three lines. Most readers are on a phone. Dense blocks get skipped whole.
• One post, one job. If the role is really two jobs, the post reads confused and so do the applicants.

Before you hit publish

Read the post on your phone, the way a candidate will. Then ask the person on your team closest to the role to read it and answer one question: would you have applied to this? If the answer is a shrug, the post is not done. When you get an honest "yes, actually," publish it.