The Talent Is There. The Problem Is Usually the Job Description.

The Real Reason Good Candidates Aren't Applying

Here's an uncomfortable question for any hiring manager staring down an empty pipeline: when was the last time you actually sat down and reread your job posting before sending it out?

Not proofread it for typos. Actually reread it and asked whether someone who's great at this exact job would understand what you're looking for. Because in nine cases out of ten, when a role drags on for months and the feedback is "we're just not seeing the right people," the problem isn't the market. It's the posting.

"Strong Communicator" Doesn't Tell Anyone Anything

Every recruiter has seen this job description. Five to seven years of experience. Strong communication skills. Team player. Fast-paced environment. Bonus points for "wears many hats."

None of that actually says what the job is. It's not a description of a role, it's a description of a vibe. And vague vibes attract vague applicants, while the people who'd actually be great at the job scroll right past, because nothing in the post told them this role was written with them in mind.

Good candidates pick themselves out based on how clear the posting is. A senior backend engineer who's spent three years fixing messy old systems wants to know if that's what this job actually involves, not whether the company is "innovative" and "fast-paced." A finance manager who's great at pulling numbers together across multiple entities wants to see that spelled out, because it tells her this company actually understands its own problem.

Why Job Descriptions End Up Vague in the First Place

It's rarely laziness. Usually it's one of three things.

The role is new, and nobody has fully worked out what success looks like six months in versus day one. Or the posting was written by someone a couple of steps removed from the actual day-to-day work, so it reads like a job title with adjectives stuck on rather than a real account of what the person will do. Or, most commonly, there's disagreement internally about what the role even needs. Marketing wants a strategist. Ops wants someone who just gets things done. The posting tries to please both and ends up describing neither.

That last one is the sneaky one. A vague job posting is often a sign that a decision hasn't actually been made yet. Writing it down is where that disagreement should get sorted out, not papered over. Skip that step and you won't just attract the wrong people, you'll interview them badly too, because nobody agreed internally on what a good answer even sounds like.

What a Good Job Description Actually Looks Like

A posting that works isn't necessarily longer. It's just more decided. It answers three questions a vague one skips entirely: what does this person need to be able to do on day one that nobody else on the team can already do, what does the first ninety days actually look like, and what would make this hire feel like a mistake six months from now.

That last question is the one almost nobody asks, and it's the most useful one. If you can't say what failure looks like, you probably can't say what success looks like either, and neither can the person you end up hiring.

Being clear also does something less obvious: it filters out the wrong people before they even apply. A specific, well-written posting is a little bit of a turnoff to people who aren't a fit, and that's the point. You want a smaller, sharper group of applicants, not a bigger, vaguer one. A hundred applications for a role nobody understood is worse than fifteen for one that was crystal clear.

Where a Recruiting Partner Actually Earns Their Keep

This is the part of the process good recruiters spend most of their time on, and it's largely invisible to the client. Not sourcing candidates. Not screening resumes. Pressure-testing the job description before it ever goes live, asking the annoying questions internally that force clarity: what does this role really need, who does it actually report to day to day, and what's negotiable versus what genuinely isn't.

At Lennor Metier, that conversation happens before a single candidate gets contacted, because sending strong candidates against a fuzzy job description wastes everyone's time, including the candidate's. A 94% first-placement success rate doesn't come from having a bigger database of people. It comes from not sending people into interviews for roles that were never clearly explained in the first place.

The talent you're looking for is very likely already out there, actively or quietly open to the right opportunity. The gap usually isn't supply. It's whether your job posting actually describes the work well enough for the right person to recognize themselves in it.

So before the next role goes live, sit with it for ten more minutes. Would someone who's great at this exact job read it and think, that's me? Or would they scroll past, the same way you would.

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