How to write a job description that attracts the right candidates

A job description that attracts the right people says, in plain words and in this order: what the job is for, what the person will actually do, the few things they must already be able to do, what it pays, and how you’ll decide. Most of what fills the average posting, such as adjectives about the company, a long list of “requirements” and a personality wish list, makes it harder for the right people to recognise themselves.

This guide covers how to define the role before you write, a structure you can fill in, a worked example, and the mistakes that cost you applicants.

Job description or job posting?

Strictly, a job description is the internal document that defines a role: its purpose, duties, requirements and where it sits. A job posting is the advertisement built from it. In a small business they’re usually the same document, and that’s fine, as long as you remember that the posting is read by strangers deciding in a minute or two whether to apply.

Before you write: define the role

Most weak job descriptions are weak because the role wasn’t decided before the writing started. Answer four questions first, in a sentence or two each:

1. What is this job for? The outcome the business needs, not the title. “Close the books accurately by the fifth working day each month” says more than “Senior Accountant”.
2. What will the person actually do, week to week? Five to eight tasks, roughly in order of time spent.
3. What must they already be able to do on day one? Not what they’ll learn. Three to five items at most.
4. What would success look like after six months? This is the test you’ll judge the hire by, so it should shape the requirements.

If you’re stuck on the tasks, the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET database lists the typical tasks, skills and knowledge for hundreds of occupations. For accountants and auditors it includes tasks such as “Review accounts for discrepancies and reconcile differences.” Use it as a checklist to prompt your own list, not as text to paste: a generic description attracts generic applicants.

If the job is new to your team, it’s worth working out first whether you need more of something the team already does or something nobody does yet. Our guide to hiring for your team walks through that.

A structure you can fill in

JOB TITLE
  The plain title people search for. Seniority if it matters.

WHY THIS JOB EXISTS (2–3 sentences)
  The outcome you need, and who the person works with.

WHAT YOU'LL DO (5–8 bullets)
  Real tasks, most time-consuming first.

WHAT YOU NEED (3–5 bullets)
  Things they must already be able to do, each written so an
  applicant can tell whether they have it.

NICE TO HAVE (2–4 bullets)
  Labelled as optional. They rank applicants; they never reject.

PAY AND TERMS
  Pay or pay range, hours, location or remote, start date.

HOW WE HIRE
  The steps, roughly how long each takes, and when people will hear.
  Whether you use AI to screen applications.
  Whether this is an existing vacancy.

A worked example

Here is the structure filled in for the fictional Senior Accountant role at Larkspur Partners, used throughout our guides. Pay is left as a placeholder because the right number depends on your market.

Senior Accountant

Why this job exists. Larkspur Partners is a small accounting practice. We need someone to own the monthly close for our own books and for three small business clients, so that the partners can spend their time on advisory work.

What you’ll do

• Run the month-end close for four sets of books, finishing by the fifth working day
• Reconcile bank, payables and receivables accounts, and resolve discrepancies
• Prepare schedules and working papers for the annual external audit
• Review the work of one junior bookkeeper
• Explain monthly results to clients who aren’t accountants

What you need

• A CPA designation, or be a CPA candidate with an expected completion date
• Experience running a month-end close yourself, including sign-off

Nice to have (we’ll still want to hear from you without these)

• Experience preparing audit working papers
• Experience with a cloud accounting ledger
• A background in public accounting

Pay and terms. $[minimum]–$[maximum] a year. Full time, Monday to Friday, hybrid with two days a week in our office. Starting in January.

How we hire. We read every application against the requirements above. Shortlisted applicants get a 15-minute call, then a short practical exercise using sample data, then a structured interview with two partners. We aim to decide within three weeks of the closing date and will tell everyone we interview what we decided. [Statement on AI use.] [Statement on whether this is an existing vacancy.]

Notice what isn’t there: “five years of experience”, “detail-oriented self-starter”, “excellent communication skills”, “fast-paced environment”. Each was either a proxy for something said more precisely elsewhere, or a claim every applicant would make about themselves. Communication hasn’t disappeared: it’s in the tasks (“explain monthly results to clients who aren’t accountants”), and it will be tested in the interview.

Requirements: fewer, and written as evidence

The requirements section does two jobs. It tells people whether to apply, and it decides who you screen out. Long lists fail at both.

In a survey of 2,275 employers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, Harvard Business School and Accenture (2021) found that 88% of employers using software to filter or rank applicants said it screened out qualified high-skills candidates at least some of the time because they didn’t match the exact criteria in the job description. The fewer and more precise your requirements, the less of that happens.

Be especially wary of asking for a previous job title. Ask for the experience instead: “has run a month-end close”, not “has been a Senior Accountant”. Using its members’ profiles, LinkedIn’s Economic Graph Research Institute (Lara, 2025) estimated that defining eligibility by shared skills, rather than by having held the same title, made the pool of eligible people for a typical job 6.1 times larger across the countries it studied, and 15.9 times larger in the United States. That’s a model of who could be considered, not of who was hired, but it shows how many people have done the work under a different title.

Write each requirement so an applicant can tell whether they meet it: “has run a month-end close independently” rather than “strong accounting background”. If you can’t say what evidence would show it, you won’t be able to screen for it consistently either. Must-have vs nice-to-have has a four-question test for each item and a free worksheet.

Wording: describe the work, not a personality

Word choice changes who applies. In a series of studies, Gaucher, Friesen and Kay (2011) found that job ads for male-dominated occupations used more masculine-associated words such as “competitive” and “dominant”, and that ads written with more of these words made the jobs less appealing to women. The studies used constructed ads, so treat the size of the effect with caution. The fix costs nothing anyway: describe the tasks and the evidence you want, and drop the adjectives.

A few more wording choices that help:

• Use the title people search for. “Senior Accountant”, not “Numbers Ninja”. Applicants search for titles they recognise.
• Put pay in the posting. In a growing number of places it’s required, and everywhere it saves both sides a wasted conversation.
• Say how you’ll decide. Applicants who know there’s a work sample and a structured interview can prepare for the job, not for guessing what you want.
• Write in the second person. “You’ll run the close” is easier to picture than “the successful candidate will be responsible for”.

What the law may require in the posting

Depending on where you hire, the posting may have to include specific information. Since 1 January 2026, most Ontario employers with 25 or more employees must state the pay, say whether AI is used to screen, assess or select applicants, and say whether the job is an existing vacancy, and must not require Canadian experience. Several U.S. states require pay ranges. Our article on what a job posting must disclose sets out the rules with links to each official source and a posting checklist (PDF). This is not legal advice; check the rules where you hire.

Common mistakes

Mistake	Why it hurts	Instead
Copying last time’s description	The job has usually changed, and the old list grows with each reuse	Answer the four role questions again
Ten or more “requirements”	Screens out people who could do the job and discourages them applying	Three to five must-haves; the rest labelled nice to have
Duties listed as requirements	Only people who’ve held the exact title qualify	Duties under “what you’ll do”; qualifications under “you need”
Year counts and degrees by default	Weak predictors that remove capable applicants	Ask for the thing the years stood in for
Personality adjectives	Every applicant claims them; some wording deters good applicants	Describe the work and how you’ll assess it
No pay, no process	Fewer applicants, more drop-outs, and in some places non-compliance	State the pay and the steps

Where SortTheStack fits

When you create a job in SortTheStack, it drafts requirements from your job description as Must have and Nice to have, written as qualifications rather than duties, for you to edit before anything is screened. Each job can have its own careers page, and every application is then read against your final list, with the evidence quoted. If you use it to screen applicants for a posting covered by Ontario’s rules, that posting needs the AI statement. See how the screening works.

Sources

• Fuller, J. B., Raman, M., Sage-Gavin, E., & Hines, K. (2021). Hidden workers: Untapped talent. Harvard Business School Project on Managing the Future of Work and Accenture.
• Lara, S. (2025). Skills-based hiring: Increasing access to opportunity. LinkedIn Economic Graph Research Institute.
• Gaucher, D., Friesen, J., & Kay, A. C. (2011). Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(1), 109–128. doi.org/10.1037/a0022530
• U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, O*NET OnLine, 13-2011.00 Accountants and Auditors, accessed 19 October 2026.
• Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, Requirements related to publicly advertised job postings, accessed 12 October 2026.