How to Write a Job Description That Doubles as a Search Brief

Learning how to write a job description comes down to one goal. A good job description clearly explains what the role is, what the person will do, and what qualifications they need.

For recruiters, the job description shapes the posting, sourcing strategy, and screening criteria. If the job description is unclear, the sourcing criteria can end up unclear too, which makes it harder to build the right shortlist.

What is a job description?

A job description is a written record of a role's tasks, duties, and responsibilities, plus what a person needs to do them. SHRM's job description guide calls job descriptions recruitment tools that clarify role purpose and set titles and pay grades.

That makes it more than an HR document. It's the shared reference you and the hiring manager or client work from, and the job posting candidates see is built from it. It comes early in the recruitment process and shapes nearly every step that follows.

What to include in a job description

A complete job description covers the title, summary, duties, qualifications, working conditions, and reporting line. Wright State's HR guide lists six core components. It's also useful to include the reporting line so candidates and recruiters understand where the role sits.

• Job title: Use a title people in the field will recognize and are likely to search for.
• Job summary: A short paragraph on why the role exists and what success looks like.
• Duties and essential functions: The main responsibilities, each with an estimated share of time.
• Required qualifications: The skills, credentials, and experience a person must have on day one.
• Preferred qualifications: Skills or experience that would be helpful, but aren't essential for someone to succeed in the role.
• Working conditions and physical requirements: Location, schedule, travel, and any physical demands.
• Reporting line: Who the role reports to and who reports to it.

Avoid writing the description around the person who held the role before. Their individual strengths and working style may not be relevant to the next hire.

How to write a job description

Start by gathering the facts, draft the duties and qualifications, then review the description with the hiring manager and HR.

• Gather the facts: Meet the hiring manager or client and, if you can, people already in the role. SHRM suggests interviewing existing employees about the knowledge, skills, abilities, and credentials the role needs.
• Start from a task list: O*NET Online, run by the U.S. Department of Labor site, lists tasks, skills, and knowledge by occupation. Use it as a starting point, then adapt it to the specific responsibilities of the role you're hiring for.
• Write duties as actions: Use present-tense action verbs such as writes, operates, or performs. If you write "assists" or "handles," say how.
• Keep the list short: Wright State suggests 4 to 7 duties. Estimate roughly how much time each responsibility takes over the course of a year. The percentages should total 100%, and tasks that take under 5% of the time can be grouped into broader responsibilities.
• Identify essential duties: The EEOC defines essential functions as basic duties an employee must perform, with or without reasonable accommodation. A reasonable accommodation is a change to the job or setup that helps a person with a disability do the work.
• Identify marginal duties: Virginia Tech HR calls the rest marginal duties, meaning incidental or nonessential tasks.
• Separate required from preferred: Keep required and preferred qualifications separate so candidates can tell which ones are true must-haves. If the hiring manager or client can't say why something is required, move it to preferred.
• Describe physical needs by outcome: Describe what the job requires someone to accomplish, such as moving stock between floors, rather than exactly how they must do it. Virginia Tech HR says these requirements should focus on what's accomplished, not how.
• Add a disclaimer and get approval: Once the description is drafted, add any standard disclaimer language. SHRM recommends a line stating other duties may be assigned. Then have the hiring manager or client and HR review it.

Example: turn a vague duty into a specific one before you start sourcing

Say you're hiring a warehouse lead, and the draft reads "Handles inventory." That gives candidates very little information and gives recruiters few useful terms to search for.

Rewritten, it reads "Counts and reconciles inventory each week against the system." Add "Reports gaps to the operations manager" as a second line. Now you have concrete experience and skills to look for: inventory reconciliation, inventory software, and reporting.

Job description template

Copy this template and fill in each line with the hiring manager or client.

Keep the template in a shared doc so everyone edits the same version. Once it's approved, you can use it to build your sourcing plan and screening criteria.

Job description vs job posting

A job description documents the role internally. A job posting turns that information into a candidate-facing advertisement.

To turn one into the other, cut and reframe rather than copy and paste.

• Lead with the outcome: Open with what the person will be responsible for achieving in the first months.
• Trim the duties: Keep the essential responsibilities that matter most to someone deciding whether to apply.
• Keep must-haves short: List only true requirements so qualified candidates don't rule themselves out unnecessarily.
• Answer the big questions: Add pay, location, schedule, and how to apply.

Those same must-haves should also inform your Boolean search strings, which are keyword searches joined with AND, OR, and NOT, and your screening questions.

Check the job description before you start sourcing

Before you start posting or sourcing, confirm that the description still matches the role. Any mistake here will affect the rest of the hiring process.

Read it with the hiring manager or client at intake, the first meeting where you agree on the role. Ask them to rank the qualifications and confirm which duties are essential. Then focus on the responsibilities the role has now, rather than filling the description with work it might take on someday.

Use the required list to plan your talent assessment and to spot resume red flags during screening. For each must-have, decide how you'll evaluate it: through the resume, screening questions, interviews, references, or a work sample. If you can't explain how you'll assess it, the requirement may be too vague.