At the job post · 8 min read
How do I read a job description properly?
Read a job post in four passes: the work, the must-haves, the wish list and the warning signs. With a worked example and a ten-minute checklist.
The short answer
Read a job description in four passes. First, find the work: the verbs in the duties tell you what you'd do most days. Second, find the must-haves: legal requirements, licences and the skill the job uses all day. Third, mark the wish list: years, tools and 'a plus'. Fourth, check the facts: pay, place, hours, closing date and who you'd report to.
Key takeaways
- The duties section tells you more about the job than the title or the company blurb.
- Words repeated across a post are usually what the hiring manager cares about most.
- Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves before you decide anything.
- Missing pay, a vague employer or a request for money are reasons to slow down.
- Write one sentence on what you'd do on a normal Tuesday. If you can't, ask before you apply.
On this pagePass one: what would you actually do?
Pass one: what would you actually do?
Skip the company introduction and go straight to the duties. Underline every verb: draft, review, call, build, schedule, analyse, sell. Those verbs are the job. A 'marketing executive' who mostly schedules social posts and a 'marketing executive' who mostly writes reports are two different jobs with the same title.
Then write one sentence: 'On a normal Tuesday I would…'. If you can finish it from the post, you understand the role. If you can't, that's your first question for the recruiter, and a sign the post was written in a hurry.
Pass two: what must you have?
| Usually a must-have | Usually softer |
|---|---|
| Right to work, licences, registrations | An exact number of years |
| The skill the duties use every day | A named tool when you know a similar one |
| Anything marked essential or required | Anything marked desirable or a plus |
| Anything repeated across the post | Industry background, if the skill transfers |
Legal requirements are the clearest stops. In the UK, GOV.UK sets out that employers must check a job applicant's right to work before employment starts, so a post that requires it means it. Everything else on the list is a judgement a hiring manager makes, and they often hire people who show most of it.
Pass three: what's on the wish list?
Most posts mix what the team needs with what would be nice. Years of experience are usually a proxy for 'can do this without close supervision'. Named tools are usually a proxy for the task the tool supports. Read each one and ask what the hiring manager is really worried about, then look for evidence of that on your CV.
Count repeated words too. If 'detail' appears in the summary, the duties and the requirements, accuracy matters more than anything on the wish list, and it should be the first thing your CV and cover letter prove.
Pass four: are the facts there?
- Pay: a range, or at least a band. A missing figure isn't a red flag on its own, but note it.
- Place and pattern: office, hybrid or remote, and how many days.
- Hours and contract: full time, part time, fixed term or permanent.
- Closing date and posting date: an old post with no closing date may already be filled.
- Who you'd report to: a named team or role is a good sign the job is real.
Some signs mean stop altogether. Action Fraud warns about recruitment scams that ask for money for training, checks or equipment, or that offer a job without any interview. A real employer doesn't charge you to apply.
A worked example
Illustrative example: a post for a 'Customer Success Associate' lists ten bullets. The duties repeat 'onboard new customers', 'run check-in calls' and 'spot accounts at risk'. The must-haves are clear English, calls with customers and a CRM. The wish list has '2+ years in SaaS' and 'Salesforce'. A reader who has run client calls in a hotel and used a booking system has the core work, can show the CRM skill with a similar tool, and has a sentence for the Tuesday: 'calls with new customers to get them set up, and a list of who's gone quiet.'
Common mistakes
- Reading the title and company, then deciding.
- Treating all ten bullets as equally important.
- Ruling yourself out on years of experience alone.
- Missing the closing date, then rushing a weak application on the last night.
- Never noting why you said no, so you can't spot what you keep turning down.
Recruiters read fast too. In the Ladders 2018 eye-tracking study, recruiters spent an average of 7.4 seconds on a first look at a CV. A careful read of the post is how you make sure those seconds land on what they care about.
OffLadder CV is our free Chrome extension for this moment. Open a job post and the side panel lists what the post asks for, puts the line of your CV that covers each requirement next to it, and says plainly whether the job looks relevant to you or is one to skip. Checking a job needs no account.
What happens to the gaps
Applying shows you what employers want that you can't show yet: a must-have your CV doesn't mention, or a question you couldn't answer well. Hand the job from OffLadder CV to Laddie, our AI coach, and it turns each one into three steps:
- Learn the skill: a short lesson on what the post asks for, starting from the basics.
- Try the work: a 15-minute task taken from the job itself, so you have a real example to talk about.
- Practise the interview: a five-question mock interview for that role, weighted to the parts you're least sure of.
The conversation stays in your OffLadder account. Once you've done the work, add it to your CV in your own words, and the next post you tailor for can point to it.
Questions people ask
- What is the most important part of a job description?
- The duties, usually under 'What you'll do' or 'Responsibilities'. They describe the actual days, and the requirements exist to serve them. If a requirement doesn't connect to any duty, it's often softer than it looks. If a duty appears three times in different words, it's the core of the job.
- How do I tell must-haves from nice-to-haves?
- Look for the words 'essential', 'required' and 'must' against 'desirable', 'a plus' and 'ideally'. When a post doesn't say, treat legal requirements, licences and the skill the job does every day as must-haves, and treat exact years, named tools and industry background as negotiable.
- What if the job description is vague?
- Vague posts are common, especially for new roles. Read the company's other open roles for the same team, look at who holds a similar title on LinkedIn, and ask the recruiter one specific question: 'What would a good first three months look like?' The answer tells you what the post didn't.
- Should I copy words from the job description into my CV?
- Use the post's words for things you've genuinely done, spelled the way the post spells them, so a person or a search finds them. Don't paste whole phrases you can't back up. If the post says 'stakeholder management' and you've run meetings with three departments, say it in their words with your example.
- How long should it take to read a job post?
- About ten minutes for a post you're serious about. Two minutes is enough to rule most posts out: if the core work doesn't interest you or a legal requirement rules you out, stop. Save the full read for the few you'd actually apply for.
Exercises are practice, not evidence of career fit or a qualification. How to read our guides and report a correction.
Sources
- Checking a job applicant's right to work · GOV.UK
- Write a successful job application · Prospects (Jisc), UK graduate careers service
- Recruitment scams · Action Fraud (UK)
How this page is written
Sources support the factual background, not a guarantee that an exercise predicts career fit. Fictional practice material is labelled. Dates record content updates; no independent expert review is implied. More about OffLadder.