Your Job Description Must Include:

✅ A Humane Company Overview

The rule of thumb is to consider your target “user” – your candidate. The overview shouldn’t resemble a pitch for an investor but rather a story you’d tell a friend. Ensure it conveys the essence of your product, mission, and company culture.

For instance, here’s a great example from a Concept Designer job description at Snap:

“Snap Inc. is a camera company. We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Our products empower people to express themselves, live at the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.”

✅ Who You Are Looking For, and Why

Craft this section as a narrative that begins with the purpose of the role. This paragraph should answer the question “why” and foster empathy with the candidate.

An amazing example from the Lead Product Designer JD at Blitz:

“The Blitz team is seeking an experienced Lead Product Designer to help us build and scale the product design practice. Reporting to the Director of Design, you will work with key cross-functional stakeholders across product, design, and engineering to design new features for Blitz and to manage other designers on the team.”

✅ The Responsibilities

Use a bulleted list for clarity and impact. Limit yourself to 5–6 main points to ensure the candidate reads through to the end.

Here’s a snippet from the Senior Product Designer JD at Twitter:

Design, prototype, and develop elegant solutions for our mobile and web apps.

Identify user needs, sketch solutions, build prototypes, test ideas with our research team, and refine designs with data and customer feedback.

Document detailed interaction models and UI specifications.

Evangelize the best UI practices to other designers, engineers, and product managers.

✅ List of Requirements (After the Responsibilities!)

Be clear and concise about the requirements. Avoid generic phrases and ambiguous messages, such as: "An ability to think globally, taking a broad view of all variables that could impact future product and company-wide success" (Yes, it’s actually copied from a real-world job description!).

Here’s a solid example of requirements from a Senior Product Designer description at Dropbox:

Prototypes with Figma (or similar tools like Sketch, Adobe XD, Framer, etc).

Refines their solutions and designs through usability testing.

Spikes in interaction design.

Approaches designing a user’s journey holistically.

Comfortable with travel, potentially quarterly post-COVID.