How To Be A Talent Magnet

By Paul Freed/Managing Partner – Herd Freed Hartz Executive Search

Do your job descriptions attract talent like a magnet?  Do they make a busy, employed, in-demand candidate stop scrolling and lean toward your company over every other option in their inbox? Do you stand out from the pack and inspire candidates?

As retained executive search recruiters, we have a front-row seat to what actually moves top talent. Across 25+ years and 1000+ executive search placements, we’ve distilled what works into a field-tested job description framework that helps our clients stand out and win people who weren’t even looking. The math is simple: an hour spent upgrading a description routinely saves 20-plus hours downstream — fewer and better interviews, faster closes, and a stronger first impression that compounds all the way through onboarding.

Roughly 70% of the global workforce is “passive” talent — people who aren’t actively job-hunting — while only about 30% are active seekers according to Linkedin. The best candidate for your role is almost certainly employed, content, and not reading job boards. Your description has to earn their attention.

WHY THIS BELONGS ON THE LEADERSHIP AGENDA

• Want higher-quality candidates? It starts with the job description.
• Want fewer interviews per hire and less wasted executive time? It starts with the job description.
• Want to recruit faster? It starts with the job description.
• Want new hires who ramp quickly and stay? It starts with the job description.

The Template: Two Pitches, Eight Building Blocks

A winning job description has eight building blocks, grouped into two halves. The first is reusable across every role; the second you tailor to each opening.

Your Company Pitch (#1–3: Inspiring, Different, Authentic)

A standardized, two-paragraph company overview you can place at the top of every description — entry-level to executive. It answers the questions candidates always have and gives them a reason to care. In our intake conversations, what a CEO or hiring manager says about the company is often genuinely inspiring — and then the written description doesn’t come close. Most job descriptions are simply boring, and like any good copywriter knows, if you don’t catch attention in the first few lines, no one reads on.

Your Role Pitch (#4–8: Title & Role Overview, Key Outcomes, Role Activities, Qualifications, Call to Action)

The specifics of this job — framed around impact and outcomes rather than “here are 20 tasks you can do without knowing why.”

YOUR ULTIMATE JOB DESCRIPTION TEMPLATE

There are 8 steps that make up a winning job description.  This template has been field-tested with hundreds of companies and roles over our 25+ years as an executive search firm – it just works

Our goal: Help your job descriptions stand out from the pack and inspire more talent to join your company. Each of the eight articles that follow includes the idea, why it matters, and a practical checklist to pressure-test your own description — plus one outside data point per section you can bring to your next hiring conversation. Let’s begin.

Your Job Description Progress Bar:

 
NEXT STEP: #1 INSPIRING