I'm actually turning my response into a full blog post, as I think many people will get something out of it. I'm not trying to argue that the methods used by re

I'm actually turning my response into a full blog post, as I think many people will get something out of it. I'm not trying to argue that the methods used by recruiters are the best for candidates, but rather explain them in terms of the recruiter's perspective and motivations. Salary range - It matters when you have candidates who have a false sense of their own value. If I'm hiring an Android dev for a client and I know the salary goes up to 140K, what is the use of telling that number to the person 2 years out of school who is only worth 80K at this point? The reason salary ranges exist is that a company realizes they will get some variation of experience. We can call people "Junior" and "Senior" all day long, but it matters little when we get applicants of varying experience applying for the same job. The salary range, particularly when talking about those least qualified for the job, often creates an inflated sense of value that translates into potentially losing a candidate who feels somehow snubbed because they didn't get the max of the range. People aren't realistic about their value in most cases, and the range just reinforces that issue. Reason for hiring: I see your point about replacement candidates, but most don't use job specs as a way to both screen in and potentially screen out candidates. I do like specs that screen out (if they want you to work 60 hours, I'd like that to be in the job spec). Benefits: Again, we're advertising what is different. We could potentially write every single detail of the benefits package, including what the plan is and how much your copay will be if you go to the podiatrist without a referral, or whether or not our HMO covers chiropractic. That might be a dealbreaker for the person with the bad back, but it doesn't matter much to most people. PTO is important to you, and to most - so that is something that is usually worth mentioning, but is only mentioned in most cases when it is above average. Most people will assume 'average' when reading a job spec unless it is otherwise stated. You'll assume 40 hours a week (probably), so if the company expects only 25 hours or if they expect 80 hours it is worth mentioning. If it's 40, should I mention it? The job post is to get you to apply to something you are qualified for and hopefully interested enough to want to learn more (as well as screen out those who are unqualified or would obviously not be interested due to a dealbreaker), and we're not able to give every single point in it. Even if we did give every detail, you are still going to actually MEET the people, and you might not like them (or they might not like you). It's how we start a conversation with an applicant, but it's certainly not how we end it.