I go through a lot of job postings. More than 100 a week is probably reasonable.
And after a while, you stop reading them the way a candidate does — hopefully, quickly, already picturing yourself in the role — and you start reading them the way an editor does. Looking for what's missing. Noticing what's there that shouldn't be.
Most of the things that get a role cut from this newsletter aren't obvious. They're not "this is a scam" obvious. They're the kind of thing you'd only catch if you were looking at fifty of these a week and started to see the patterns.
So here's some of what I see from this side.
The company describes itself in superlatives and nothing else.
Not the name, the product, or even what they actually make or do or serve. Just "an innovative, fast-growing organisation committed to transforming the way people live and work."
Every company is innovative or transforming something. What I want to know — and what a job description should be able to tell you — is what your Monday looks like. Who is this company to anyone outside of this posting?
If you can't answer that from what they've written, they're either too early-stage to know, or they're deliberately vague for reasons that won't benefit you.
Either way, it's not a strong foundation to apply from.
The requirements list is longer than the responsibilities list.
Most people never notice it because they're scanning for the qualifications, not analyzing the structure.
But when a posting has twelve bullet points of what you need to bring and three vague lines about what you'll actually be doing — red flag.
It usually means one of two things: the role isn't fully defined yet and they're over-specifying requirements to compensate, or the actual work isn't interesting enough to describe in detail and they're hoping credentials will carry your attention past that.
Neither of those is where you want to land. The best postings can tell you what the work is. If they can't do that, they can't onboard you well either.
"Flexible" only appears in the benefits section.
There's a real difference between a company that has built flexibility into how work actually gets done and a company that lists "flexible schedule" the same way they list "casual dress code."
If flexibility shows up in the job itself — in how deliverables are structured, whether the role is async, what the actual time commitment looks like — that's a green flag.
If it only shows up next to the gym reimbursement, it's more likely a way to attract candidates than a real description of how you'll work.
Your audience knows the difference between flexible work and a flexible Friday.
The posting has clearly been up for a long time — and nothing's changed.
You can't always see the post date, but there are tells:
A role that's been reposted across three different job boards with slightly different titles.
A "new" listing where the company has had the same opening on their careers page for four months.
A description so evergreen it contains no context, no dates, no sense of urgency, no sense of now.
Sometimes that means turnover. Sometimes it means the role isn't approved yet and they're collecting applications speculatively.
Sometimes the manager who wanted to hire left and no one took down the job. Whatever the reason, a posting that's been floating around that long has usually already rejected a lot of people or stalled internally — and you'd be walking into that without knowing it.
The language gets punitive before it gets welcoming.
Some postings introduce the role with removal clauses, non-compliance language, or termination conditions before they've told you anything about the team, the mission, or what a good day looks like.
The way a company writes a job description is the way they think about the people in the role. Employers who are excited to hire someone lead with that. They tell you what you'll build, what you'll own, what success looks like.
The ones who open with what happens when things go wrong are already managing for a specific outcome — and they're giving you a preview of the culture whether they mean to or not.
These aren't the only things I look for, but they're the ones that took me the longest to articulate. They're worth knowing whether you're reading the newsletter or going it alone.
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