How Long Should a Job Description Be, and What to Cut

A job description should be as long as its reader needs and no longer: usually one to two pages for the internal record, and about 300 to 700 words for the public posting. These are working guides, not rules. Keep purpose, key duties, essential requirements, pay and process, and cut everything that does not help someone decide or someone assess.

Why length is a real hiring problem

Most job descriptions are too long for the same reason: they grow by addition. Someone starts from a job description template, a manager adds a wish, HR adds a legal line, a previous holder adds a task they disliked, and nobody removes anything. The result is a wall of text where the three or four things that matter are buried. Long descriptions cost you in three ways. Candidates skim or skip them, so your best-fit people may never reach the line that would convince them. Capable people self-select out because a long requirement list reads as a high bar. And your own team cannot use the document, because a list of thirty duties gives no signal about priorities when screening or reviewing performance. There is no magic word count, since a senior role in a regulated field legitimately needs more detail than a warehouse assistant post. But you can reason about length from the reader. This guide gives working ranges by document type, a cut list you can apply line by line, a worked before and after, and a scoring table. Wherever a template or generator is involved, the same principle holds: these tools add text easily, and the editor has to remove it. See /job-description-template for role guides you can trim.

Start with who is reading

Length depends on the reader, so decide the reader first. A candidate on a phone comparing five adverts needs the short version, enough to answer: what is it, where, for how much, what do you need, how do I apply. A hiring manager scoring applications needs the essential requirements and nothing else in their way. An employee being onboarded or reviewed needs the fuller record: purpose, responsibilities, reporting lines and success measures. HR may need extra items for contracts, which differ by country. If one document must serve both candidates and the internal record, the compromise is a clear top section that works alone, followed by a short detail section a reader can skip. Think of it as an inverted pyramid: the first screen carries the decision, and everything below is reference. Test it by reading only the first third of your draft and asking whether a stranger could decide to apply. If not, the document front-loads the wrong content. Many teams find that writing the short posting first reveals what the essentials really are, and the longer record then becomes easy to organise around them.

Working length ranges by document type

Use the table as a starting point. These ranges come from common practice, not from a study, so adjust them for your field and for how much the reader already knows.

If your draft is far above the range, do not simply shrink the font or squeeze the layout. Reduce the content. If it is far below, check that you have not omitted pay, process or the reason the role exists, because short is only good when nothing essential is missing. A tool that generates text can easily overshoot these figures, so set the target length before you generate, then trim the result.

The cut list: what to remove first

Work through the draft and remove or shorten these items, in roughly this order. One: generic company boilerplate longer than three sentences. Two: filler adjectives and slogans such as dynamic, passionate, world-class and fast-paced. Three: duties that the role does not truly perform or that take under five percent of the time. Four: duplicate duties stated twice in different words. Five: requirements that are really nice-to-haves. Six: years-of-experience demands you cannot justify. Seven: tool lists beyond the two or three core ones. Eight: an exhaustive benefits list, replaced by the five that matter most plus a link. Nine: internal jargon and acronyms a stranger will not know. Ten: the line saying other duties as assigned, unless your local practice requires it. Keep anything that is legally required where you hire, and ask for local advice if unsure, since rules differ. After cutting, read what remains aloud. Anything you stumble over or cannot explain to a colleague in one sentence is a candidate for another cut, or for rewriting in plainer words.

Before and after: a worked example

The following is an invented example. Before: a 900-word posting for a marketing coordinator that starts with 200 words of company history, lists 22 duties including making coffee orders for events and other duties as assigned, requires a degree, five years in marketing, and mastery of eleven tools, and ends with a 150-word benefits paragraph. After: a 430-word posting. Opening, 60 words: We are a twelve-person training company and need a coordinator to run our email, social posts and event logistics so our two trainers can spend more time teaching. Duties, 7 lines: schedule and send the monthly newsletter, publish social posts three times a week, manage event registrations, update the website calendar, report monthly on sign-ups, coordinate with venues, support the team lead on campaigns. Must-haves, 5 lines: clear writing shown in a sample, experience using an email tool, basic spreadsheet skills, ability to manage several deadlines, availability on event days. Nice-to-have, 2 lines. Pay range, location, hybrid arrangement, process and how to apply, 80 words. The after version lost half the length and none of the information a candidate needs. It also made screening easier, because five must-haves can actually be checked.

Score your draft for length and focus

Use this checklist to decide whether the draft is ready. Score 0 for no, 1 for partly, 2 for yes. Aim for 14 or more out of 20.

If you score low on the third and fourth rows, the document is probably describing a wish list. Interview the manager on what the person will actually spend time on, and rebuild from that. A short, well-ordered description is not a sign of a small role. It is a sign that someone decided what matters.

Using a template or generator without bloat

A job description template gives structure, and a job description generator gives speed, but both lean toward length because more text looks more complete. To keep control, give a generator limits in your instructions, such as a word count, a maximum number of duties and a maximum number of requirements. Supply real facts, since a thin input produces padding. Then edit the output with the cut list. When using a template, delete sections you cannot fill with something specific; an empty heading is better removed than padded. Treat the template's example duties as prompts, not as content. Also be careful that automated tools do not add requirements you did not intend, since each added requirement narrows your candidate pool. After editing, compare against your own interview notes: every line should trace back to something real about the job. If you are drafting with the JD Enhancer at /jd-enhancer, read its output with the same eye, since AI output is decision support and the final judgement is yours. Cutting is the human part of the work, and it is where most of the quality comes from. One habit helps: keep the long version in a separate file, labelled as the archive, so cutting never feels like losing something. When a manager insists that a detail must stay, ask which candidate decision it would change. If it changes none, move it to the archive. Over a few hires you will build a short, trusted master that your team can reuse and update, instead of a document that grows heavier each time someone touches it. Review the master twice a year and delete before you add. Treat every addition as a trade: if a new duty goes in, ask which old one comes out, so that the document stays a fair picture of the job and not a record of every request anyone ever made.

Common mistakes when trimming

Trimming has its own traps. The first is cutting pay, location or process to save space, which makes the post less useful, so cut elsewhere. The second is removing the reason the role exists, leaving only a task list. The third is cutting legally required statements, which differ by country, so check local rules first. The fourth is shrinking sentences into fragments that read as cold or cryptic. The fifth is removing all duties detail from the internal record, then having nothing to hold performance against. The sixth is trimming the posting but leaving the internal description bloated, so interviewers work from the long version and the two disagree. The seventh is cutting nice-to-haves entirely when they actually help you choose between finalists. The eighth is chasing a word count while keeping vague language. A short document full of slogans is still weak. Judge by clarity, not by numbers alone, and test with someone who has not seen the role.

Where Rezumz fits

Rezumz is an AI hiring workspace for small and mid-size hiring teams. The JD Enhancer at /jd-enhancer tightens a draft you paste in, and the job setup step lists the must-have and nice-to-have skills it found so you can keep that list short and check it before CVs are scored against it. A shorter, clearer requirement list gives cleaner scoring because the score depends on those requirements. Rezumz does not decide your length targets for you, does not publish postings to job boards with one click and is not an HRIS or payroll system. It suits small and mid-size teams, with the Team plan for four or more recruiters, and it does not suit large enterprises needing deep HRIS or payroll integrations. Prices: the free plan includes 2 free candidate analyses; paid plans are $29 a month, $199 a year or $499 lifetime (limited); Team is $79 a month or $699 a year for up to 10 teammates. Try the live demo at /demo, compare plans at /pricing and read about screening at /ai-resume-screening.

When length is the wrong thing to worry about

Sometimes the problem is not length. If candidates keep misunderstanding the role, the fault may be a confusing title or an unclear reason for the role, and trimming will not help. If you get plenty of applications but few suitable ones, the requirements may be vague or the pay hidden. If the role is highly regulated or safety critical, fuller detail may be both legitimate and necessary, and you should follow your sector's rules. If you hire at high volume for a simple role, a short posting with a link to a fuller page can serve both needs. In all these cases, return to the reader and ask what they need to decide or to assess. Length is a symptom; clarity is the goal. A description that is exactly as long as the reader needs, with every line earning its place, will usually outperform both the sparse one-liner and the bloated wish list.