Get 40% More Applicants on Your Job Postings

A case study from inside a major bank's recruiting operation lays out exactly how a stalled applicant pipeline got turned around after every open requisition was pulled down, rewritten, and reposted at once. The approach breaks the candidate journey into three steps that every job posting has to solve: getting found, getting clicked, and getting applied to.

Getting found comes down to search relevance. Job board consoles such as Indeed's hiring insights tool reveal the actual terms candidates type in when searching for a given role, and those terms need to appear directly in the posting. A tool like ChatGPT can take a draft description plus a list of target keywords and rewrite the copy so the terms are woven in naturally.

Getting clicked depends almost entirely on the job title, since titles carry more search weight than body text. Matching the title to how candidates actually phrase their search, rather than the internal or formal title, makes a posting far more likely to get opened.

Getting applications requires rebuilding the description itself around a few principles:

• Open with attention-grabbing language that puts the reader inside the role, instead of leading with paragraphs about the company
• Write in "you" language rather than "we" language, so candidates picture themselves doing the work
• Cut bullet lists down to four to six meaningful points instead of long duty lists
• Explain why the role matters and what impact it has, since candidates gravitate toward work that feels important
• Remove biased language tied to gender, age, disability, and other categories, such as "digital native," "aggressive," or "he/she"
• End with a clear call to action, since even a simple "apply now" gives candidates a concrete next step

A side-by-side rewrite of a real job posting shows the difference: a dry list of duties and required tools becomes an opening question that reframes the role as a chance to shape decisions through storytelling with data, followed by a tight set of qualifications focused on the two or three things that actually predict success in the job.