During the awkward small talk of events, I get a lot of comments from people who always knew I wrote job postings. They’re usually along the lines of “AI must be really messing up your business.” A few years ago when ChatGPT first came out, sure. I was scared. I would fumble around with my answer and be so nervous. Now, I laugh.
ChatGPT has been able to improve the baseline for job posts, sure. We don’t get those half baked, could have been classified ad job posts. But the baseline was shit. The AI generated job posts are no better than what anyone could make up. They just sound more witty. They sounds like AI wrote them.
AI has made the sea of mediocre content bigger. It hasn’t driven results. Making something sound better doesn’t generate recruiting results. Knowing what makes a job posting bad? Now that might help a lot more than any generic technology spitting out more job content.
What Makes A Job Post Bad?
You can’t fix a job post if you don’t know what good (or bad) actually mean. So after several years of collecting scary job posts for this series, I thought it was time we take a step back. Not to just mock, but to understand how scary job posts get on this list in the first place.
So in no particular order and certainly not all factors inclusive, here’s 5 ways people make job posts not just bad, but straight up scary.
- The “I know what you did last summer” job post. Alternatively, I’ve called this the “I can tell how they hurt you” job post. This is the one where the writer spends so much time explaining what is unacceptable that you know it really bothered whoever was left behind to write this job post. So much so that they now feel the need to over explain it in the ad like an exclamation point is a preventative for annoying human behaviors. I wish.
- Racist, sexist, or homophobic comments. Yes, I really see these. Too often, the bros try to say it's describing a culture fit. It’s not. They’re just assholes.
- Buzzword bingo. Buzzwords say a lot without saying anything at all. They don’t make you stand out just because you said it 15 times. If I’m starting to count how many times you said “collaborative team player,” we’ve gone too far.
- Too creative. I’m all for creative writing. Not on your job post. If you read a post out loud and you can read it like the announcer at a race track? You did the scary job post thing I’m referencing here.
- Blatant contradiction. This is by far the most popular scare tactic. For example, this is your job post with misspellings that says “attention to detail” 8 times. Yes, even with all that AI we still have so many jobs getting shared with misspellings. *Stares into camera like Kermit*
The Scariest Job Posts of 2025
Based on this year’s collection of scary job posts, I think it’s safe to say this series is not getting disrupted by AI yet.
Love this series? Read the scary job post blogs from previous years here.
