One of the hardest paragraphs you’ll write is a bio or really anything about your professional career. I mean, what’s important to include? What shouldn’t you include?

Now try doing that for a whole company – appeasing individual teams, PR, and executives. Will they ever be happy? I mean, maybe after the 67th review meeting.

Everyone has a different idea about what makes a company description good. Marketing will argue for something long and detailed. HR will argue for something all about talent. Executives will probably want a say, too. How do I know? I’ve been the technical copywriter trying to capture everyone’s ideas in one place so they can make a damn decision.

Standing Out When Everything Sounds The Same

I saw it happen every time. The more these company descriptions got edited and reviewed, the more they all sound the same. I went into it believing that the content would be really nuanced. I assumed they would be a little different based on every industry, the size of the organization, or region.

That’s not what happened. Instead, these teams would edit the posts to death in the effort of “standing out.” Typically, that only eliminated the parts of the post that actually made them different. They were left with a company description that looked exactly the same and didn’t work for all the same reasons. Proof: when my team did an at a glance comparison in job postings from the Fortune 100, almost 1/3 used the exact same language in their description.

The irony here is that everyone thought they were standing out with their great About Us content. Now they’re accelerating that problem of not standing out by using the same content straight out of ChatGPT that 500 other people used today, too.

What Does A Good Company Description Include?

News flash: You’ll never stand out doing the exact same shit everyone else is doing.

Actually want to stand out? Write for the candidate, not about the work your company does – especially if most candidates haven’t heard of you before. It doesn’t really matter what a super well known company puts as their company description. But for the rest of us? We need to get this right by conveying the most important details to the person on the other side. Here’s what I want to see.

1. Convey stability: The most important thing to communicate, especially in all the current uncertainty? That this company won’t disappear any time soon. You can use any 2 of the following metrics: revenue, company size, and hiring data. Why 2? Companies that are stable don’t need to oversell.  
2. Impact: People want to know how they will impact others. In fact, impact (or the lack thereof) is one of the rising reasons why people leave jobs. Include at least 1 sentence that describes what you do in the world that helps people.
3. Next Steps: A link to learn about what you offer candidates, aka benefits, career paths, etc. Don’t include 3 paragraphs on benefits, please. Just one link. That’s it.
4. Bonus: Something unique. This one is optional. Think about what makes your company different. What might surprise someone about working at this company? Are the benefits bad ass? Do you only promote from within? If there’s a surprise and delight factor, say it. 

Want to create a company description for your job post that stands out? Try incorporating these things and taking out the rest. Remember, candidates are scanning this content at best. Invest in a job post that tells the truth, not some “perfect” copy and pasted company description, if you really want to stand out.

Job Postings about us