How to write a job advert: a free 10-page guide and a template you can fill in.
Written for owners and managers hiring without an in-house HR team. What goes in an advert and in what order, the wording that can put you on the wrong side of the Equality Act and a template with the sections already laid out.
- Ten pages, including a fill-in template
- Free, and the download is not conditional on anything
- Written by Elena Suhova, MSc HRM (Birkbeck, University of London), CIPD Associate
Get the guide
Free, with no form to fill in. Ten pages, with the template at the back.
Download the guide (PDF, 450 KB)Prefer occasional hiring and HR emails as well? Sign up at the bottom of this page. The guide never depends on it.
Six sections and a template. Roughly twenty minutes to read.
The guide is built around one idea: a candidate reads your advert to work out whether the job suits them. Give them enough to decide, and the wrong people stop applying on their own.
Before you write anything
Six questions to ask the person already doing the job, or the closest equivalent. The answers are more useful than any job description template.
The anatomy of an advert
Seven sections in the order a candidate reads them. What the role is for, what a typical week looks like, what success looks like, then the requirements. The company goes last.
Language and the law
Which words narrow your applicant pool without improving it, a free tool that checks your text in two minutes and the wording that risks a discrimination claim.
Application questions
Eleven questions that surface how someone thinks, including the two that tell you the most. Plus when not to ask any.
The friction principle
How much effort to ask of a candidate, depending on whether you expect fifty applications or five. Getting this backwards is a common and expensive mistake.
A checklist and a template
Ten checks before you post, then a full advert template with every section laid out and placeholder text to replace.
- Does the opening tell the candidate what this role is for, in three sentences or fewer?
- Have you described what a typical day or week looks like?
- Is it clear what success looks like, with specific outcomes and a timeframe?
- Have you listed attributes and values before experience requirements?
- Have you separated essential requirements from desirable ones?
- Does the advert include a salary or a salary range?
- Does every sentence read as spoken, not written? Read it aloud.
An advert is part of your recruitment process, so discrimination law applies to it.
Section 39 of the Equality Act 2010 covers the arrangements you make for deciding who to offer a job, and the advert is one of those arrangements. Section 3 of the guide covers this properly. The short version:
Wording that restricts the job to one group
"Recent graduate", "young and energetic", "salesman", "must be a native English speaker". Each of these points at a protected characteristic. The Equality and Human Rights Commission can act on a discriminatory advert without anyone having applied, and a rejected applicant can use it as evidence.
Requirements you cannot justify
A degree, or a fixed number of years' experience, as an essential for a job that does not need one. That is indirect discrimination if it puts a group at a disadvantage and you cannot objectively justify it. Keep the essential list to what someone genuinely cannot do the job without.
Encouraging applications is allowed. Selecting is not.
You may say you particularly welcome applications from an underrepresented group. That is positive action under section 158 of the Equality Act. Choosing a candidate because of a protected characteristic is not, except in the narrow tie-break at section 159 or where a genuine occupational requirement applies.
An equal opportunities line is good practice, not a legal requirement
No law says an advert must carry one. It signals something to candidates and helps show you take the duty seriously, so include it. What the law actually requires is that you do not discriminate, whatever the advert says.
The rules for employers are also changing in stages to 2027 under the Employment Rights Act 2025, and two of them touch hiring: from 1 January 2027 unfair dismissal protection starts at six months rather than two years, which makes the probation period in your advert worth getting right. The full list is on our employment law updates hub. This page is general information, not legal advice.
If the guide raises a question about a role you are hiring for now
Send it over. Most advert questions take one reply. If you would rather someone wrote the thing, that is a fixed fee and it is small.
Book a free 20-minute call See the other free tools
All prices + VAT. What If HR Ltd, Caterham, Surrey. Surrey, London, South East England and remote UK.
HR updates, now and then.
Occasional emails for business owners: employment law changes explained simply, and the things worth knowing before they become a problem.
You've signed up. Thank you.
We only email occasionally, and one click unsubscribes you. See our privacy policy.