Job descriptions are one of the highest-leverage marketing pieces a business produces. A bad job description wastes hours of recruiting time by attracting wrong-fit candidates or deterring good ones. A good one attracts the right people and filters out misaligned applications before any human time is spent.
AI can improve your job descriptions significantly if you use it correctly.
What makes a bad job description
Bad job descriptions have predictable characteristics:
Generic role descriptions. "You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive business outcomes." This sentence describes no job in particular. It signals that the hiring manager copied from a template.
Lists of requirements without context. "5+ years of experience, degree in a relevant field, excellent communication skills." Without understanding the actual job, candidates cannot assess their fit and employers attract a random sample of whoever reads the posting.
Excessive requirements for junior roles. Asking for five years of experience for an entry-level position, or a degree for a role that does not require one. This is well-documented as a factor in excluding qualified candidates who self-select out.
Missing information about what the role actually does. A week in the job looks very different from the job description. Candidates who take a role based on a misleading description leave faster.
Salary not disclosed. Hiding salary wastes everyone's time and signals that the compensation is below market. Candidates who see salary transparency self-select more accurately.
Using AI to write the structure
AI is effective at producing the framework of a job description. Give it the following:
- Job title
- The team the person will join and what the team does
- The three to five main responsibilities in plain language
- The specific skills and experience that are required (not preferred, required)
- The culture and working style of the team
- The compensation range
- The location and work model (remote, hybrid, on-site)
Prompt: "Write a job description for a [title] role at [company description]. The person will [key responsibilities]. They must have [required skills and experience]. The team [team description]. Compensation is [range]. The role is [work model]. Make the tone [tone: direct/warm/etc.]. Do not use corporate jargon. Be specific about what the person will actually do."
Review the output and edit heavily. AI descriptions often include generic filler that sounds professional but communicates nothing. Remove it.
Using AI to audit an existing description
If you have a job description that is not producing good applications, AI can audit it.
Prompt: "Here is a job description. Tell me: 1) What is unclear or ambiguous? 2) What requirements seem unnecessary or could exclude good candidates? 3) What information about the role or company is missing that would help candidates self-assess? 4) Does this description sound like a specific company or a generic template? 5) What is the most important thing to add or change?"
The output will surface problems that are hard to see when you are too close to the document.
Rewriting for different channels
A job description for LinkedIn reads differently from a job post on a specialist job board. An internal memo describing a new role reads differently from a public posting. AI can quickly rewrite the same role for different audiences.
Prompt: "I have this job description for [LinkedIn/an internal memo/a startup job board/our own career page]. Rewrite it for [target channel/audience]. Keep the key information the same. Adjust the tone and format for [audience characteristics]."
Checking for biased language
Research consistently shows that certain language in job descriptions reduces applications from women and other underrepresented groups. AI can flag this.
Prompt: "Review this job description for language that may discourage applications from women, older candidates, or candidates from non-traditional backgrounds. Identify specific phrases that may be problematic and suggest alternatives."
Tools like Textio and Gender Decoder also do this specifically, but AI does it adequately for most use cases.
A note on accuracy
AI does not know your company, your team dynamics, your actual culture, or what the day-to-day job looks like. Everything it generates is based on pattern-matching from similar job descriptions it has seen.
The AI's role is to handle the structural and stylistic work. Your role is to ensure the content is accurate and reflects the reality of the job. The most honest job descriptions are the most effective, and only you know what honest looks like for your role.
Hiring developers and technical roles
For technical roles specifically, the requirements section is where most job descriptions go wrong. AI-generated developer job descriptions often include requirement lists that are either over-specified (must know React, Vue, Angular, and three other frameworks) or generic (strong coding skills).
If you are hiring technical talent and want help writing a job description that will actually attract senior developers, our hire staff pages include role-specific guidance for each technical position. And if you want to access pre-vetted senior developers without writing the job description at all, talk to our team about direct placement.