How One Job Description Kept Out Half the Applicant Pool

Lucas and Luna dig into a 2024 study from the Society for Human Resource Management that found the average job description contains more than 80 requirements — but the most effective ones have fewer than 10. They break down why the laundry-list approach backfires, citing data from a 2025 Greenhouse Hiring Benchmark Report showing that reducing requirements from 15 to 6 increased applicant volume by 102 percent without lowering quality. They walk through the specific changes one mid-size tech company made to its software engineer job description, including ditching the '5 years of React experience' demand for a willingness-to-learn signal, and how that shift cut time-to-fill from 45 days to 22. They also touch on the legal risk of over-specifying credentials that disproportionately screen out protected groups, citing a 2025 EEOC settlement with a retailer that listed 'Bachelor's degree preferred' for a warehouse supervisor role. Episode 27 of Hiring & Firing with Fexingo. #JobDescription #HiringProcess #ApplicantVolume #RecruitmentStrategy #GreenhouseReport #SHMStudy #JobRequirements #SkillsBasedHiring #EEOC #InclusiveHiring #TimeToFill #SoftwareEngineerHiring #UnderrepresentedCandidates #DegreeRequirements #BackgroundCheckBias #HiringMetrics #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo