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Job Posting Best Practices

How To Format Your Job Titles & Descriptions for Optimal Results

Written by Greg Cherry

High-quality job titles & descriptions that meet the guidelines of Apploi's job board partners can help increase the visibility of your positions and lead to higher traffic of candidates. Here are a few suggestions to help optimize your job postings:

Job Titles

Job titles should be kept concise but also provide enough information about the position. Especially in the medical field, it is best to spell out the name of the job, such as Certified Nursing Assistant, while also including the abbreviated acronym. So for this example, the job title would read Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). Try to eliminate shift information, compensation, or other details besides the title itself unless you are sponsoring. General shift information "evening shift' is ok, but specific shift information such as "9a-5p" requires sponsorship. If extra information is in the job title it could get flagged by the job boards.

There should also only be one job posting for each position you’re hiring for. For example, if you’re hiring for different shifts for the same job, avoid creating a separate job for each shift because job boards tend to flag those as duplicates and then may remove them. For roles such as PRN where the benefits or duties greatly differ, it is advisable to create a separate job to ensure clarity for the candidate.

Note: You can also internally manage various shift needs using our job openings feature. To enable Job Openings, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or to Apploi Support via in-platform chat or at support@apploi.com.

Job Descriptions

The ideal job description "format" is below, using bullet points instead of paragraphs. Longer job descriptions can overwhelm candidates and dissuade them from applying to your job. Healthcare workers are in high demand right now, so you really must show them why they should want to work for your company. Highlight any competitive pay, time off, or any other perks you may have that would cause a job seeker to want to work for your company.

We also recommend including the job title in the description 4 - 5 times to optimize job matching for candidates.

Example Format Below:

Company Name
1-3 sentences about the company & any sign-on bonuses/offers

Shift Tye:

[Job Title] Pay Rate

  • Pay Rate

[Job Title] Benefits

  • Benefit

  • Benefit

  • Benefit

[Job Title] Duties

  • Duty

  • Duty

  • Duty

[Job Title] Responsibilities

  • Responsibility

  • Responsibility

  • Responsibility

Pay Rates

Salary information is one of the most important factors for job seekers when they search for and view jobs. We know that job seekers want to see salary information for every job posting. When asked if salaries were helpful when shown along with job descriptions, over 80% responded favorably. We also know that jobs with salaries perform better; the fill rate for jobs on Indeed Hire improved by 40% when salary information was included. We recommend putting the salary information in your job descriptions. If no salary can be extracted from the job description, Indeed will show an estimated salary for jobs, and it may not be accurate. So, to avoid that, please add a salary or salary range to all job postings and make sure it is the same in the job description as it is in the job salary fields.

In many states, posting the pay ranges is now required by law. As of January 2025, these are the laws we are aware of, but please consult your local laws and legal advisors.

State

Date Enacted

General Law

California

Jan 2023

Pay ranges required in job posting

Colorado

Jan 2021

Must list pay range and Benefits in all job postings

Connecticut

Oct 2021

Required to give salary range upon extending offers, or before if the candidate requests

District of Columbia

June 2024

Must include the minimum and maximum projected salary or hourly pay in all job listings

Hawaii

Jan 2024

Must disclose the hourly rate or salary ranges on job postings for all private employers with 50+ employees

Illinois

Jan 2025

Must include pay scale and benefit information in job postings and keep a copy of the job posting utilized for up to 5 years.

Maryland

2020

Required to give pay range upon candidate request

Massachusetts

October 2025

Employers with 25 or more employees must disclose the salary range for a position in all job postings and provide it to employees offered a promotion or transfer

Minnesota

Jan 2025

Required to list salary range in job postings

New York

May 2022

(NYC, Ithaca, and Westchester County) Salary range must be posted in all job postings (see further below)

New Jersey

June 2025

Salary range must be posted in all job postings

Nevada

Oct 2021

Salary range MUST be provided to candidates after 1st interview

Ohio

2020

(Toledo and Cincinnati) Required to give the salary range upon the candidate's request

Rhode Island

Jan 2023

Employers are required to provide a salary range before extending an offer

Vermont

July 2025

Employers with five or more employees are to include a compensation or compensation range in all job advertisements for positions located in or tied to a Vermont location

Washington

Jan 2023

Pay ranges required in job posting

If you do not fill out this information where legally required to do so, sites like Indeed will not post your job​ (among other considerations).

New York State

There are three exemptions to the NY pay transparency law. They are:
1. Temporary staffing firms
2. Employers with fewer than 4 employees
3. Commission-only roles

Florida

Certain employers in Florida must link to the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) new public background checks resource in their job postings for any position that requires a screening through Florida’s Care Provider Background Screening Clearinghouse.

Indeed

If your jobs have been impacted by the salary requirement, but you believe they should be exempt from this law, Indeed suggests visiting this link and submitting an appeal for reconsideration.

For those positions that do not have a base salary, the pay rate can be added to the job description for the Indeed salary extracting tool to pick up appropriately. Some examples include:

  • Pays Up To

    • If you are expressing pay with an upper limit, you can outline "up to" in the job description. For example:

      • Pay is up to $15/hour

  • Pays From

    • If you are expressing pay that starts from a certain value, you can use “From” or add a “+” behind the value. For example:

      • Pay: From $10 per hour

  • "+" symbol

    • Indeed supports using the “+” symbol behind the salary amount to indicate starting from. For example:

      • Wage is $10+ / hour

For more examples of readable salaries and general formatting, please visit Indeeds Formatting Guidelines.

Keywords in Job Descriptions

Our largest job board partners are search engine optimized, so in order for job seekers to find your roles, be sure to include terms that job seekers may be searching for at least five times within the description. For example, if the job posting is for an RN, make sure you are listing "RN" multiple times in your description as well as "Registered Nurse". The more those terms are visible, the more likely the job will display sooner in searches. Rather than saying "This position provides" or "This position requires", consider "The Registered Nurse (RN) position provides", and add those important terms when it is natural within the context of the description. This helps your job appear as more relevant in job searches and helps increase traffic to the post.

Other quick tips to check your jobs for:

  • Spelling: Job boards will flag jobs for spelling errors

  • Referencing a background check: Under Indeed's Conviction History Disclosure (NY/NJ) policy, job posts in these states should not reference criminal-history or background-check requirements. While this language is common and enforcement varies, it could be flagged.

  • Post each job only once; if a job is available in more than one location, post it once per location

  • Don't repost your job - update an existing job post instead of creating a new one

  • Only repost if the role has closed and later reopens

  • Keep details accurate and consistent across reposted jobs.

  • Reopening an old job: if you reopen an old job, you may see it flagged; contact Indeed for help if your reopened job is flagged per Indeed's Posting Integrity and Duplicates policy.


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