My first job posting generated 94 applications and exactly two people worth interviewing. Not because good candidates weren’t out there, but because the post itself was generic enough that it attracted volume instead of fit, a list of responsibilities and requirements that could have described almost any similar role at almost any similar company, giving applicants nothing specific to actually self-select against.
The second version of that same role, rewritten with specific filtering built directly into the post itself, generated 31 applications and eleven worth interviewing. Fewer total applicants, dramatically better ratio, and far less of my own time spent sorting through mismatches that a better-written post would have filtered out before they ever applied.
Why Generic Job Posts Attract the Wrong Volume
A job post built from a generic template, standard bullet points about responsibilities and required years of experience, reads identically to hundreds of other postings a job seeker has already scrolled past. It gives someone no real information to evaluate whether they’re actually a fit before applying, which means people apply broadly based on a vague sense of qualification rather than a genuine, specific match, and the filtering work that should have happened before the application gets pushed entirely onto you afterward.
My original post asked for “3-5 years of relevant experience” and listed generic responsibilities like “manage client relationships” and “support business operations.” Technically accurate, completely useless for actually filtering anyone out, since nearly any candidate with adjacent experience could reasonably interpret themselves as qualified.
What Actually Filters for Fit
A specific, real scenario the person would face in their first month. Instead of listing abstract responsibilities, describe an actual situation. “In your first month, you’ll likely handle a client who’s upset about a delayed delivery, with limited information about why the delay happened, and need to communicate a resolution within 24 hours.” This does more filtering work than any list of required skills, because it lets a candidate honestly assess whether they’d actually want to and be capable of handling that specific kind of situation, rather than vaguely matching themselves against generic language.
An honest description of what the role is not, alongside what it is. My rewritten post specifically noted “this role does not involve significant remote flexibility in the first six months” and “this is not primarily a strategic role, it’s heavily execution-focused.” Both of these deliberately filtered out candidates who would have been a poor fit, and both generated genuine appreciation from candidates who did apply, who told me directly that the honesty made them trust the posting more.
A specific, real constraint of working at a small business, stated directly. “You’ll be one of three people handling this function, which means broader responsibility and less specialization than you’d have at a larger company” filters for people who genuinely want that tradeoff, rather than people who assume small business experience will closely resemble their previous role at a larger, more specialized organization.
A genuine, specific culture signal instead of a generic values list. Rather than listing abstract values like “collaborative” and “fast-paced,” which describe almost every company’s self-description, I described an actual recent situation and how our team handled it. “When a project ran behind schedule last quarter, our approach was direct, immediate communication with the client rather than waiting until the deadline to explain the delay” tells a candidate something real and specific about how the team actually operates, in a way generic values language never can.
Why This Approach Reduces Total Applications, and Why That’s the Point
A job post genuinely built to filter for fit will, correctly, generate fewer total applications than a generic one. This feels counterintuitive if you’re used to measuring a posting’s success by volume, and it’s actually the entire goal. Ninety-four applications with two genuine fits wastes far more time, yours and the ninety-two mismatched applicants, than thirty-one applications with eleven genuine fits.
The Balance to Strike: Specific Without Being Narrow
There’s a real risk of overcorrecting into a posting so specific and narrow that it filters out genuinely qualified candidates who simply haven’t encountered that exact scenario before but would handle it well. The goal is specificity about the actual nature and constraints of the role, not an impossibly narrow checklist of prior exact experience. The scenario-based approach works precisely because it tests judgment and fit, not a specific résumé line item that only a narrow slice of candidates would already have.
What to Do Now
Before your next job posting, replace at least one generic responsibility bullet with a specific, real scenario the person would actually face in their first month. Add one honest sentence about what the role is not, alongside what it is. Replace any generic culture language with one specific, real example of how your team has actually handled a real situation.
Expect fewer total applications. Expect a dramatically better ratio of people worth actually talking to, which is the number that actually matters.
