"We're looking for an engineer with passion": why generic job descriptions drive the best away.

Try this experiment: open a job board, search "mechanical engineer", read five ads from five different companies. Then try to remember which belonged to whom. You won't manage it, because they're the same ad: "dynamic, fast-growing organisation", a list of fifteen requirements, "proactivity and passion complete the profile", "salary commensurate with experience".

Now the part that interests us: how a good engineer reads that ad, one of those who are employed, have alternatives, and give your job description thirty seconds flat.

How those who can afford to choose read an ad

An experienced engineer reads a job description the way they read a technical drawing: looking for the information, and noticing what's missing. Every omission is a data point.

No salary? They read: "they want to see what I ask before committing, and the budget is probably low". In markets where the range is required by law, candidates have stopped applying blind. The best Italians have stopped here too, they just don't tell you: they simply don't apply.

Fifteen requirements? They read: "they don't know what they're looking for". No real profile meets fifteen requirements; whoever meets fourteen rules themselves out over the fifteenth, whoever meets five applies anyway. The long list filters exactly backwards: it keeps the desperate, discourages the precise, and good engineers are precise by trade.

"Duties: support for the engineering department's activities"? They read: "they haven't decided what I'll do". A professional leaving a real job for a vague one is buying risk. They won't.

"Young and dynamic", "strong passion", "problem-solving attitude"? They don't read it at all: by then they've already closed the page. Empty words aren't neutral, they're the sign that the company didn't talk to anyone who does the job before writing the ad.

The real cost isn't the ad that doesn't work

It's what it communicates. The job description is often the first technical document a candidate sees from your company. If it's imprecise, redundant and number-free, the implicit message is: this is how we work here. For an engineer, someone who spends the day removing ambiguity from documents, it's a consistency test the company has just failed.

And there's a subtler effect: the generic ad forces you to select from the wrong pile. You'll get a hundred applications from vague profiles instead of ten relevant ones, HR will spend days sifting, timelines stretch, and meanwhile the three right candidates, the ones the ad never reached or convinced, are still where they were.

Anatomy of an ad that works

The effective technical job descriptions we see working have five ingredients, none of them secret.

The project, not the position. Not "we're looking for a process engineer", but "we're industrialising a new machining line and looking for someone to take it to full production". The first is a slot. The second is a challenge with a beginning, an end and a result to be the author of. The best profiles choose challenges.

The machines, the software, the numbers. Which equipment, which CAD, what volumes, what tolerances, what team. Technical details don't weigh the ad down: they are the ad. They're also the most effective filter there is, whoever doesn't understand them isn't your candidate.

Three real requirements, not fifteen. The ones without which the person can't do the job. Everything else, the nice-to-have, the desirable, the "considered an advantage", either gets cut or is declared for what it is.

The salary range. Yes, public. The classic objection is "but then internal employees see it too". Exactly: if the range you offer externally doesn't hold up against the internal one, the problem isn't the ad. Publishing the range does three things: it doubles relevant applications, eliminates pointless interviews, and signals that the company treats people as adults.

What happens next. How many interviews, with whom, in what time. It's the rarest ingredient and costs one line. A stated, and respected, process is worth more than any careers page.

Before and after, in one line

Generic version: "We're looking for a mechanical engineer with passion, proactivity and a results orientation for a dynamic, fast-growing organisation."

Version that works: "New line to industrialise by 2027: we're looking for someone who's done it once and wants to do it again with budget and autonomy. €50–58k. Two interviews, answer in ten days."

Same position. The first speaks to no one. The second speaks exactly to whom you want, and, not a minor detail, discourages those who don't fit.

One last uncomfortable truth

For the rarest technical roles, even the perfect ad isn't enough: as we describe in Anatomy of a Search, the best candidates often don't read ads at all, and have to be reached one by one. But even there the job description works: it's the document the contacted candidate will ask to see, and the first proof of seriousness you'll show them. Write it the way you'd write a technical specification: because for the people you want to hire, that's exactly what it is.

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Labora Partners is a headhunting and staffing boutique for technical and engineering profiles, Milan and Eindhoven. If you like, we'll write the job description together, it's the first thing we fix in every mandate. Let's talk.