Somewhere in Lagos right now, an HR officer is posting a job ad that begins with "A reputable organisation requires the services of..." and wondering why the inbox is full of applications from people who clearly never read past the title. Meanwhile, companies like Paystack, Moniepoint and Kuda post openings for similar roles and get flooded with strong candidates within days.
That gap is not luck, and it is not just brand name. It is the job description itself. Your JD is not an internal memo — it is an advert. It competes for a candidate's attention against every other listing on their screen, including remote roles paying in dollars. If it reads like a court summons, the best people scroll past and your ad quietly becomes a magnet for desperate, unqualified applications.
Writing a job description that attracts top talent is a skill, and it is one of the highest-leverage things you can do as an employer. You write it once; it filters thousands of people for you. Here is how to get it right.
Stop writing for your files — start writing for the candidate
A job description is marketing, not documentation. Most Nigerian JDs are written to satisfy an internal process: HR copies an old template, legal adds three paragraphs nobody reads, and the result is a document designed to protect the company rather than attract a human being. But the person you actually want — the one with options — is reading your ad on a phone, probably in traffic, deciding in under a minute whether you are worth their evening. Write for that person.
The best candidates read selfishly, so answer their questions first. Before they care about your "dynamic, fast-paced environment", they want to know four things: what will I actually do, what will I earn, where will I work, and can I grow here? A JD that answers those four questions clearly will outperform a beautifully formatted one that dodges them.
Get the job title right — searchable beats creative
Nobody is searching for "Growth Ninja". Job boards and LinkedIn run on search. If you call the role "Customer Happiness Rockstar" instead of "Customer Support Officer", you have hidden your vacancy from the exact people looking for it. Use the standard, boring, searchable title — Accountant, Backend Developer, Sales Executive, HR Officer — and save the personality for the body of the ad.
Match the title to the seniority you can actually pay for. Advertising "Senior Product Manager" on a budget that fits an associate wastes everyone's time and damages your name. Candidates talk. Lagos tech circles are small, and a company known for posting senior titles with junior pay ends up in group chats for the wrong reasons.
Open with one paragraph that sells the role
Your first paragraph should make the right person lean in. Skip "A reputable firm requires the services of..." — it says nothing and signals everything, mainly that you may not want to be named, which makes candidates suspicious. Instead, say who you are, what the person will own, and why it matters. Something like: "We are a 40-person logistics company moving goods between Lagos and Onitsha daily. We are hiring an Operations Manager to own our delivery network and cut failed deliveries." Two sentences, and a serious candidate already knows if this is for them.
Name your company unless you truly cannot. Anonymous ads attract fewer and weaker applications, because in a market with real job-scam problems, candidates rightly treat "confidential employer, apply with your CV and passport photograph" as a red flag. If confidentiality is unavoidable — say you are quietly replacing someone — run the search through a trusted recruiter's brand instead.
Describe outcomes, not 27 bullets of duties
List what success looks like, not every task you can imagine. A JD with 27 responsibilities is not thorough; it is unread. Pick the five to seven things the person will actually be judged on in their first year, and frame them as outcomes: "reduce monthly stock variance", "close the books by the 5th working day", "grow B2B accounts across the South-West". Strong candidates are drawn to clear expectations, because clear expectations are how they build a track record.
Kill the copy-paste clutter. "Any other duties as assigned by management" sitting among ten vague bullets tells candidates the role is undefined and the boundaries do not exist. If everything is the job, nothing is.
Separate must-have from nice-to-have — ruthlessly
Every extra requirement quietly shrinks your pipeline. Demanding five years' experience for what is honestly a two-year role, or insisting on a master's degree for a job that needs none, filters out exactly the hungry, capable people who would have made the hire a bargain. Split your list in two: three to five genuine must-haves, and a short "bonus if you have" section. Then delete anything you could teach in a month.
