Over the last few months, we’ve posted countless job ads to various job boards, and their variety has ranged from engineering jobs to office positions. We’ve noticed that some jobs perform well, while others get close to zero candidates submitting applications. Should you find yourself out of inspiration, here are some elements of job descriptions that perform well.

Title

Make sure the job title is concrete and fits the day-to-day activities of the position. Drop “Full Stack Developer,” in favor of something more specific, like “Senior Ruby on Rails Developer.”

Keep it short, as most job boards cut off long titles. Also, it’s critical to note that your first sentence is often used to index your job in a site’s search, so make it fit the actual description.

Start: The role

Start off by telling a bit about the role within the company. What’s the goal of this new job vacancy? What’s expected from your new hire, and what will he or she be doing within the team?

Mid: Responsibilities

Second, you could make a list of the concrete responsibilities of the new hire, and don’t stress out about the length! 6–12 items in a bullet-point list is fine. Try to show as much as you can about the weekly responsibilities that the new hire will be facing. The more accurate you make this list, the better the quality of your candidates will be.

Mid: Your offer

Then, what can be expected from you? What’s it like to work for you? Tell a bit about the company or team that the new hire will join. Again, a bullet-point list of benefits works well.

Imagine for a moment that it’s not about the money, why should a candidate then decide to work for you? If the company’s culture is important to you, a team picture is highly recommended.

Last: Requirements

In order to narrow down your search and end up with a selection of the best-suited candidates, you can list the specific requirements that have to be met. Think about ‘hard’ requirements and ‘soft’ requirements. Be very careful not to make a laundry list of skills.

Ending: Procedure

Something that’s often forgotten by recruiters is some background information about the selection procedure. Will there be multiple screening rounds? If so, what do they look like (e.g. call, meeting, test)? When is the application closing date? Do you appreciate a call from someone that’s eager to work for you, or does it have to be online?

Our research suggests that well-written job descriptions — carefully drafted to showcase the company and team — perform best. This is true not only in terms of the amount of applications, but also in terms of candidates that fit the job profile. Additionally, this can save you a whole lot of time going through candidates.

Custom careers sites, where you show the company with pictures, typically receive an even higher amount of applications by around 20%. Take a look here or here for a few live examples.

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This article originally appeared on Recruitee Blog (newsletter: eepurl.com/bMHiZD)

Hagi Trinh is an avid recruitment writer at Recruitee. The team is working on the greatest hiring platform of all time. You can sign up at recruitee.com to try it out and follow us on Twitter @recruiteeHR.