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Turn two lines from a client into an advert worth reading

Briefs arrive thin — a job title, a salary that may or may not be real, and "you know the sort of thing". This drafts the advert in your house style and, more usefully, tells you exactly what the client left out.

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Brief from Alan Brightwell — Wexley Group

6 fields · 3 gaps

Role
Platform Engineer
Salary
£75–85k (below band for the experience asked)
Location
Bristol — hybrid? days in office not stated
Must have
Go, Kubernetes, "solid AWS"
Team
Not stated — who would they report to?
Process
Not stated — how many stages?

Three of the six things a candidate will ask you in the first phone call are not in the brief. You will find that out one call at a time.

Works with

  • Google Docs
  • Gmail
  • Ashby
  • Breezy HR
  • Recruitee
  • LinkedIn

The advert is drafted in Google Docs and can be written to your ATS's own careers page — Ashby, Breezy HR and Recruitee all accept job-posting writes. Nothing here reaches a job board: Composio publishes no job-board toolkits at all, and LinkedIn's integration is publishing-only, so it can post to your company page but cannot create a job listing.

The chore

How this goes right now

  1. The brief arrives as three sentences in an email, or as a job description the client's HR team wrote in 2019 and has been copy-pasting ever since. Either way it's not something you can advertise. So somebody sits down and writes the advert, which takes forty minutes and mostly consists of translating internal shorthand into something a candidate might respond to, and inventing plausible detail where the brief is silent.

  2. That last part is where it goes wrong. When a brief doesn't say how many interview stages there are, the advert says nothing about the process, and then three candidates ask you in their first call and you don't know. When it doesn't say how many days are in the office, you write "hybrid" and discover at offer stage that the client means four days and the candidate meant one. The gaps in the brief become gaps in the advert, then surprises in the process, and the cost lands weeks later.

  3. And because writing adverts is nobody's favourite hour, the job usually gets done at the end of the day and reuses whatever was written for the last similar role. Which is how an agency ends up with twelve adverts that read identically, describe every client as fast-paced, and give a candidate no reason to pick this role over the other four in their inbox — including the two that are for the same job through different agencies.

The difference

Same brief, turned around in ten minutes with the gaps named

The draft saves the forty minutes. The gap list is what stops the role going wrong three weeks later.

Writing adverts by hand
Drafted, with the questions surfaced
Forty minutes per role, at the end of the day
A house-style draft in about ten minutes of your reading time
Silent parts of the brief filled in with plausible invention
Gaps listed explicitly instead of filled with guesswork
Twelve adverts that read identically across the desk
The questions to send back to the client written for you
Missing detail discovered one candidate phone call at a time
Salary bands flagged when they sit under what's being asked for
The client never asked the questions you needed answered
Adverts that differ because the roles differ

Try it

Walk through it yourself

This is the actual shape of the workflow — the same trigger, the same steps, the same draft waiting for your say-so. Click through it.

Write job adverts

You start itGoogle Docs

You paste in the brief

Started by you, on the brief as it actually arrived — an email, a forwarded job description, or notes from the call. This one is deliberately manual: writing an advert is a piece of work you choose to start, not something that should fire on its own.

What it does

  1. Read the brief and everything around it

    Three sentences from Alan Brightwell plus the thread. Two previous roles filled with this team give context the brief doesn't: stack, team size and the interview process they ran last time.

    Gmail

  2. Draft the advert in your house structure

    Your section order and tone. Role, team, what they'd actually work on, requirements split into genuine must-haves and the rest, process, and how to apply.

    Google Docs

  3. Check the offer against what you've seen recently

    £75–85k is at or below what two comparable Bristol Go roles paid this year. Flagged as a conversation to have, not written into the advert as a problem.

    Google Sheets

  4. List what the brief didn't say

    3 gaps: reporting line, office days, interview stages. Each written as a question you can send straight back to Alan without rephrasing.

    Google Docs

Draft document — nothing has been sent

Platform Engineer — Wexley Group — draft advert

Source
Brief from Alan Brightwell, 6 Aug
Draft length
410 words
Gaps to resolve
3
Drafted from what the brief gave us
  • Opening focused on the platform work itself rather than adjectives about the company.
  • Requirements split into three genuine must-haves and four things described as desirable, because a nine-item list stops good people applying.
  • Team context drawn from the two roles you filled with this team last year, not invented.
  • Salary stated as given. Advert language kept neutral on it.
Questions to send back to Alan
  • Who would this person report to, and how big is the team now? Candidates ask this on every first call.
  • Hybrid means how many days in the Bristol office? Last time this team said two — worth confirming rather than assuming.
  • How many interview stages, and does the tech screen still involve the take-home? Two candidates dropped out over that in the spring.
Worth raising separately
  • The band sits at or below two comparable Bristol Go roles filled this year. Not something to put in the advert — a conversation to have before you go to market and get slow responses you can't explain.

Save the draft and send the 3 questions to Alan?

It's an ordinary Google Doc — rewrite anything. Most consultants change the opening paragraph, because that's where your voice matters most and where a generic line does the most damage. The questions usually go as written.

Once you approveGoogle Docs

A draft to edit, and the questions ready to send

The advert lands as a document you own and can rewrite. Where you run Ashby, Breezy HR or Recruitee it can be written to your own careers page once you're happy with it. It does not reach any job board — no job-board integration exists — and posting to LinkedIn is a company-page post, which is a different thing from a job listing.

The gaps are the useful part.

A drafted advert in ten minutes, and a list of what the client didn't tell you.

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How it works

What it's actually doing

Turning a thin brief into a first draft, and being explicit about everything the brief didn't cover instead of papering over it.

  1. 1
    • Gmail
    • GoGoogle Docs

    Reads the brief and its context

    The email, the thread, and previous roles filled with the same team. Most of what a brief omits, you already learned the last time you worked with them.

  2. 2
    • GoGoogle Docs

    Drafts in your structure, not a generic one

    Your section order, your tone, your rules — like splitting must-haves from desirables, which is the single change that most affects who applies.

  3. 3
    • GoGoogle Docs
    • Gmail

    Names the gaps rather than filling them

    Reporting line, office days, process. Written as questions you can send back, because the alternative is finding out from candidates one call at a time.

  4. 4
    • AsAshby
    • BrBreezy HR
    • ReRecruitee
    • LinkedIn

    Publishes only where it genuinely can

    Your ATS's own careers page, once you approve. It's explicit that this isn't distribution — no job-board integration exists for it to use.

You stay in control

It drafts. It doesn't invent facts about a job it hasn't been told.

An advert is a promise about what a job is like, and a wrong one wastes a candidate's time and your credibility. So the discipline is simple: it writes from what the brief and your own history actually contain, and everything else becomes a question rather than a sentence.

  1. Step one

    It drafts

  2. Step two — you

    You read it and approve

  3. Step three

    Only then does it send

It won't invent the parts that were left out

No made-up benefits, no invented team size, no "fast-paced environment" standing in for information. A gap is reported as a gap.

Nothing is published without you

The draft is a document you edit. Writing it to a careers page happens only when you say so, and never as part of the drafting run.

It doesn't write the requirements list for you

It splits what the client said into must-haves and desirables and shows you the split. Which requirements are genuinely non-negotiable is a conversation with the client, not a guess.

It has no view about who should apply

This is a writing task. It doesn't screen, rank or assess anybody, and it plays no part in what happens after somebody responds.

Setup

What setting this up involves

  1. 1

    Connect

    • Google Docs, holding your advert template and house style
    • Gmail or Outlook, where briefs actually arrive
    • Ashby, Breezy HR or Recruitee, if adverts go to your careers page
    • Google Sheets, if you keep a record of bands you've filled at
  2. 2

    Tell it how you work

    • Your advert structure and section order
    • Your tone rules — what you never say, and the phrases you've banned
    • How you like requirements split between essential and desirable
    • Which gaps always matter enough to ask about
    • Whether salary is always stated, and how you handle it when it isn't
  3. 3

    Then it runs

    About 30 minutes, once

    Mostly giving it two or three adverts you were happy with, which teaches it your structure faster than describing it. The banned-phrases list takes two minutes and is the thing most desks enjoy writing.

Edge cases

Where it's careful, and what it won't do

What it handles

  • A brief that's really a 2019 job description

    Internal titles, obsolete tooling and a nine-item requirements list. It reworks it into something advertisable and flags the parts that look stale enough to check.

  • A client you've worked with before

    Team size, process and stack from roles you filled with them previously. That context is usually more accurate than the brief and it costs nothing to reuse.

  • A salary that doesn't match the ask

    Flagged to you against comparable roles you've filled, and deliberately kept out of the advert copy. It's a conversation to have before going to market, not a note to publish.

  • Requirements that would deter good applicants

    A long must-have list is surfaced with a suggested split. The advice is shown to you rather than applied silently, because sometimes the client really does mean all nine.

What it does not do

  • Post to job boards

    No job-board integration exists — Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Totaljobs, Reed and the rest are simply not available to it. Distribution stays wherever you do it today.

  • Create a LinkedIn job listing

    LinkedIn's integration is publishing-only. It can post to your company page, which is a post, not a job ad, and we'd rather say so than let you assume otherwise.

  • Publish anything on its own

    The advert is a draft until you decide otherwise. Writing to a careers page is a separate, explicit step.

  • Handle applications

    This ends when the advert exists. What happens to people who respond is a different job, and it doesn't screen, rank or sort anybody who applies.

Time back

Half a day a month, and fewer roles that go wrong later

Time back
4–6 hrs a month
Spent on
Roles that start well
What it costs
$19 / monthStarterplan — see what’s included

How that’s worked out: Based on eight to twelve new roles a month at around forty minutes to write an advert properly from a thin brief. The gap list is the part that pays for itself less visibly — a reporting line or an office-days expectation discovered before you advertise costs one email, and discovered at offer stage costs a placement.

Fair questions

The questions consultants ask first

Won't every advert end up sounding the same?

That's the failure mode of writing them at five o'clock from the last similar role, which is what most desks do now. Because this works from the specific brief plus your actual history with that client, the adverts differ where the roles differ. It also applies your banned-phrase list, so "fast-paced" and "wear many hats" stop appearing across your whole desk — which is usually a bigger improvement than anything else here.

Our clients send us their own job descriptions to use.

Then use this on those, because a client's internal job description is almost never an advert — it's a document written for a job evaluation exercise, full of internal titles and grading language. The draft turns it into something a candidate would respond to, and the gap list works the same way: an internal JD reliably omits the process and the reporting line, because everybody inside the company already knows them.

Can it post the advert once it's written?

Only to your own ATS careers page, on Ashby, Breezy HR or Recruitee, and only when you choose to. It cannot post to job boards, because Composio publishes no job-board toolkits at all — Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Totaljobs, Reed, Seek and the rest simply don't exist as integrations. LinkedIn can take a company-page post, but that's not a job listing. We'd rather be plain about that than have you plan a workflow around something that isn't there.

More off the same desk

Other things that keep falling off the list

The same writing job elsewhere

FAQ

Questions worth answering properly

Can it post adverts to job boards?

No, and it's worth being direct about why: Composio publishes no job-board toolkits. Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Monster, Totaljobs, Reed, Seek, Otta and the rest are not available as integrations at all. It can write to your own careers page on Ashby, Breezy HR or Recruitee, and distribution beyond that stays wherever you do it today.

What about LinkedIn?

LinkedIn's integration is publishing-only — it can create a post on your company page. It cannot create a job listing, search for people, read a profile or send a message. A company-page post is a genuine promotion channel, but it isn't the same thing as advertising a role, and treating it as such would set the wrong expectation.

How does it know what the brief left out?

It compares against the things candidates reliably ask about — reporting line, team size, office days, interview process, salary. Where the brief is silent, that becomes a question written for you to send back rather than a sentence invented to fill the space.

Will it match our house style?

It works from your template and two or three adverts you were happy with, which teaches it your structure more reliably than a description would. You can also give it a banned-phrase list, which is the fastest way to stop the same tired lines appearing across a whole desk.

Does it decide what the requirements should be?

No. It splits what the client told you into must-haves and desirables and shows you that split so you can challenge it. Whether a requirement is genuinely non-negotiable is a conversation with the hiring manager, and it's often the most valuable one you have on a role.

What happens to people who apply?

Nothing here touches that. This task ends when the advert exists — it doesn't screen, rank or sort applicants, and responses go wherever they go today.

Get the advert written and the right questions asked

Paste in the next brief you get. You'll have a draft in your house style and a short list of what the client forgot to tell you.

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