How to write a vacancy that actually attracts technical talent

A strong technician or engineer looking around today has options. They scan your vacancy in ten seconds and then decide: keep reading or click away. In those ten seconds they look for three things: what will I do, what will I earn, and where is it. If one of the three is missing, you have already lost part of your candidates before the first paragraph ends.

Start with the work, not the company

Most vacancies open with three paragraphs of company history. Turn it around: start with what someone does on a Tuesday. Which installations do they work on, with which team, with which technology. A technical profile decides on the content of the work; the company only becomes relevant once the work sounds interesting. Also scrap the twelve-point requirements list. Pick the four that really matter and state honestly what can be learned. Every superfluous requirement costs you candidates who wrongly rule themselves out.

Put a salary range on it

This is the single biggest lever you have. Vacancies with a salary range demonstrably get more responses, and it immediately filters out the mismatch: whoever sits above your range does not apply and does not waste your time. The fear of current employees reading along is real but solvable; the cost of an empty application inbox is bigger. Also mention premiums separately, because with shift work they make hundreds of euros of net difference and your audience knows it.

Write the way you talk

Technical candidates are allergic to fluff. 'A dynamic environment with room for growth' says nothing; 'you get a training budget and can grow into shift supervisor' says everything. Concrete always wins: name the machines, the software, the number of colleagues in the shift, the schedule. And be honest about the less attractive sides. If you hide shift work or standby duty until the interview, you lose the candidate there anyway, plus their trust.

Make applying ridiculously easy

Every extra step in your application process costs candidates. A form with ten fields, a mandatory motivation letter, an account that must be created: scarce profiles simply will not do it. Name, contact details and a CV must be enough to start the conversation. Ask the rest in that conversation itself. And respond fast: an applicant who hears nothing for three days is mentally already with your competitor.

The common thread: treat your vacancy as the first work document a candidate sees from you. If it is clear, concrete and honest, they expect the work floor to be the same. If it is woolly and vague, they draw the same conclusion.