Nothing narrows a candidate pool faster than an unclear salary. Broad, unexplained bandings, or worse, no figure at all, push good candidates towards adverts that are upfront about pay. Even where a grading structure requires a range, a clear indication of where most new starters land removes unnecessary guesswork.

Internal titles and grading conventions make sense to existing staff, but mean very little to an external applicant searching online. A title like "Senior Support Officer (SO2)" tells a jobseeker nothing about what the role actually involves, and it's a title that could just as easily belong to housing, HR, or community safety. Titles that reflect the actual work, alongside the internal grade if needed, perform far better in search and in candidate interest.

Application deadlines, shortlisting dates, and interview dates should be easy to find, ideally in the first few lines of the advert. Candidates weighing up multiple applications will often deprioritise adverts where this information is missing or buried deep in a PDF.

Specifications loaded with internal acronyms and sector-specific jargon can alienate strong candidates from outside the immediate field, particularly for roles where transferable skills matter more than sector-specific experience. A specification that's clear to an intelligent outsider will always attract a wider, stronger pool.

Many adverts describe duties in dry, procedural language without conveying what the actual working experience is like. A short, honest paragraph on team culture, working pattern, or what success in the first six months looks like, can be the deciding factor for a strong candidate weighing up multiple similar roles.

One thing many adverts miss entirely is any sense of progression. Candidates, particularly those early in their career or considering a move from another sector, often want to know not just what a role involves, but where it could lead. Council People's career pathway tool lets candidates explore how roles progress across local government, from entry level through to leadership, across areas like social care, planning, and housing. Linking to it from your advert, or simply mentioning that a clear progression route exists, can make a role far more appealing to ambitious candidates weighing up their options.

Even a perfectly written advert only works if the right candidates see it. Council People exists precisely because most council vacancies are scattered across dozens of individual authority websites, meaning strong candidates outside your immediate network often never come across the role at all. Listing with Council People puts your advert in front of a dedicated audience actively searching for local government roles, rather than relying on your own council website to do the work alone.

Our premium package goes further still, using AI to identify candidates whose skills and experience genuinely match a role, then actively pushing your advert to them via LinkedIn and other social channels. It's the difference between waiting for the right candidate to find you, and putting your advert directly in front of them.