Strong candidates have options.

When a posting is vague, bloated, or full of internal shorthand, they close the tab and apply somewhere that made the decision easier. None of them write back to explain why they left.

Fixing a job description usually takes an afternoon per role. Find out which problems cost the most, and how to tell whether the rewrite changed anything.

What a Weak Posting Costs You

Candidates form an opinion of the employer before a recruiter sends a single message.

LinkedIn has reported that 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before applying, and its guidance for hiring teams notes that most candidates take about 14 seconds to decide whether to keep reading a job post. Typos, vague duties, and copy-pasted boilerplate tell that candidate the team behind the post is just as disorganized.

The second cost shows up inside the applicant tracking system. A posting that never says what the role involves attracts people who have to guess.

It’s common for a recruiter to work through a few hundred résumés after a vague post goes live and find a handful worth a phone screen. Meanwhile, the person who would have been an ideal hire read “drive strategic initiatives across the business,” couldn’t picture the job, and applied elsewhere.

These costs stack. More screening slows the shortlist. A slower shortlist stretches time-to-fill. And in a slow process, the best candidates are usually the first to accept another offer.

Titles Candidates Can’t Find

People search for job titles they already know. “Customer Happiness Ninja” matches almost no searches. “Customer Success Manager” matches thousands.

Browse our extensive list of job titles people search for.

Internal titles cause the same problem from a different direction. “Associate II, GTM Ops” means something to the org chart and very little to a qualified operations analyst scrolling a job board.

When a title needs more detail, add it plainly: “Senior Data Engineer, Payments” gives a candidate the level, the function, and the domain in four words.

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