How to write a job description that brings the right people

Write a job description from the outcome backwards: say what the person will have produced by day 90, name the three must-haves without which they cannot do it, state the pay band and real hours, describe who they report to, and cut everything else. A post built this way brings fewer applicants and far more right ones.

Why most job descriptions bring the wrong people

The usual post is a copy of someone else's: a paragraph about the company, twelve bullet points of responsibilities, eight required skills, "competitive salary". It reads the same as every other post, so it brings everyone, and the owner spends three weeks reading CVs for a role the post never defined. Ahuva sees the result in her operations work: roles open for months, a hire that matched the bullets and not the job.

A good description does the opposite. It tells the right person "this is you" and the wrong person "this is not for you" before either applies. It can only do that if you have written down what the role must produce, which is why the Role Definition Canvas comes first.

The template

Section	Length	What goes in it
Title	One line	The title people search for, not an internal one. "Operations manager", not "Chief Everything Officer".
The job in one sentence	One sentence	What this person owns and what the owner stops doing when they are competent.
What you will have done by day 90	Three to five lines	Measurable outcomes, from the role page.
You must have	Three lines	The three things without which the hire fails. Nothing else.
It helps if you have	One or two lines	Nice-to-haves, honestly ranked.
Pay, hours, place, language	Two lines	Gross monthly band, real hours, on site or hybrid, Hebrew or English or both.
Who you report to and how we work	Two or three lines	The manager, the team size, one honest line about pace and culture.
How to apply	One line	What to send and one small question that shows they read the post.

Total: under 350 words. Long posts do not bring better candidates; they hide the three lines that matter. A concise, well-written job posting also doubles as the position description you keep internally, which saves writing job duties twice. The job description examples that circulate online are mostly corporate; use them for structure, not for words.

Writing outcomes instead of duties

A duty describes activity. An outcome describes a result you can check. The test: could you say at day 90 whether it happened?

Duty (weak)	Outcome (strong)
Responsible for scheduling	By day 60, the weekly schedule goes out without the owner touching it
Manage client communication	By day 90, every client query gets a first reply within one working day, tracked
Support the marketing team	By day 30, the monthly newsletter is written, approved and sent on the first of the month
Develop features	By day 90, you have shipped two features through our review process on your own

Choosing the three must-haves

If you list eight requirements, candidates with five apply and candidates with all eight do not exist. Pick three. The honest way to find them is to ask what the last person in the seat got wrong, and what you would refuse to train. "Writes clear Hebrew and English", "has run a schedule for a team of ten", "can show me a thing they built" are must-haves. "Team player" is not; everyone claims it and nobody can be screened on it.

The must-haves become your screening questions, and the outcomes become your interview scorecard. That is why the description is part of the same page as the interview plan; see interview questions for small business owners.

Pay, hours, location and language

State the gross monthly band. "Competitive" tells a candidate that you either do not know or do not want to say, and the people you want are the ones who will not apply blind. State the real hours, including the evening or Friday pattern if there is one. State on site, hybrid or remote. State the language of the work: an English-speaking owner with a Hebrew-speaking team should say so, because it is the first thing a candidate wants to know.

Before you post the band, make sure you can carry it with employer costs added; the hiring in Israel guide lists what sits on top of gross.

The standard job description parts, and which ones you can drop

Job description templates from human resources departments follow a fixed shape: job title, job summary, essential functions or duties and responsibilities, qualifications and skills, certifications, work environment, physical demands, supervisory responsibilities, salary range. For a well-written job description in a small business most of that collapses into the template above, but it helps to know what each part is for, because candidates with corporate experience expect to find it.

Standard part	In a small business post
Job title	Keep. The searched-for title, not an invented one.
Job summary / general description	Becomes "the job in one sentence".
Essential functions, job duties, responsibilities of the position	Becomes "what you will have done by day 90": outcomes, not a duties list.
Qualifications and skills required, certifications	Three must-haves, plus "it helps if". A certification is a must-have only if the law or a client requires it (an accountant, a nurse, a licensed electrician).
Work environment, physical demands	One honest line: on your feet, lifting, driving, evenings, a noisy open office. It saves everyone a wasted interview.
Supervisory responsibilities	"You report to" and, if they manage anyone, who.
Salary range	State it. Gross monthly band.

Update job descriptions when the role changes, which in a growing business is every year or so. The written notice of employment terms that Israeli law requires lists the main duties, so the two documents should agree.

Required qualifications, preferred qualifications, and working conditions

Corporate templates split qualifications into required and preferred, and list the abilities required, the work experience, and the working conditions down to "must lift 50 pounds". The habit is worth keeping in a lighter form. Required qualifications are your three must-haves: the things an employee must have to perform the job duties on day one. Preferred qualifications are the nice-to-haves, honestly ranked. Working conditions are the one honest line about the type of work: hours, standing, driving, lifting, a noisy office, Hebrew on the phone all day.

Two more things a well-written description handles. A minimum and maximum for the salary, so candidates know where they stand. And a note on how the supervisor and employee will work together: weekly one-to-ones, a 90-day review. In the US the Americans with Disabilities Act shapes how essential job functions are written; in Israel the Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law plays the same role, so describe the functions of the job, not the person you imagine doing it. Whether the posting is internal or external, the same draft serves both.

A worked example

Questions about job descriptions