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I’m sometimes asked how long a job description title should be.
Below are a few opinions from others I trust.
Note: This article is part of our ongoing series called Job Titles: The Definitive Guide.
1 to 3 Words
Job titles with 1 to 3 words had an apply rate twice as high as those with 12+ words
source: “Shorter job ad titles led to higher apply rates” section of Appcast’s 2018 Recruitment Media Benchmark Report)
Note from Rob: Ongig’s software shows that the average job title length in the industry is 6.1 words (more than 2X too long!)
10 to 20 Characters
Job titles in the 10 to 20 character range get clicked on twice as much as those over 60 characters)
source: Lizzie Jeffrey of Glassdoor’s How to Make Your Job Postings More SEO-Friendly
Note from Rob: Ongig’s software shows that the average job title length in the industry is 34.2 characters.
Your Title Tag Should be less than 60 Characters (for Google Optimization)
Some job titles exceed 60 characters and that’s not good for Google Search Engine Optimization.
Here’s a tip on title tag length from SEOmoz’s What is a title tag?:
Google typically displays the first 50–60 characters of a title tag. If you keep your titles under 60 characters, our research suggests that you can expect about 90% of your titles to display properly.
Tips to reduce your job title length:
Companies often stuff un-needed words and characters into their job titles to make them too long. To get your job titles in the 1 to 3 word/10 to 20 character length, make sure you are not including any of the following in your titles:
- Location
- Symbols ($, !, *, !, etc.)
- The name of your business
- Mention of a bonus
- Mention of part-time versus full-time
- The # of hours a week required
Use data to create the best job titles [stats from Appcast’s recruitment marketing report]
Creating the best job titles, as you learned above, hinges heavily on the job title length. Appcast’s 2021 Recruitment Marketing Benchmark Report shows data for clicks and apply rate by job title length.
The data in this section is based on an analysis of 34.7 million job ads and 642,298 unique job titles. (source: Appcast)
The charts above show in 2020, job titles between 1 and 3 words had the highest average volume of clicks and the highest apply rate.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also check out our articles on the best Sales Titles and Software Titles.
For more tips on writing job descriptions, check out How to Write a Job Description — Best Practices & Examples.
Why I wrote this?
Ongig’s job description marketing platform optimizes the apply rate for JDs. Our software analyzes the text you use and will soon recommend the optimal job title length too.
