Six phrases that quietly filter out the exact engineers you want, and what to write instead.
The phrases doing the damage
"Competitive salary" reads as below market. "Fast-paced environment" reads as understaffed. "Must be flexible" reads as unpaid overtime. "Other duties as required" reads as scope creep. "Immediate start essential" reads as somebody just walked out. "Wearing many hats" reads as two jobs, one salary.
Write for the employed candidate
The engineer you want has a job, a routine and no urgency. Give them a number, a patch, a rota and a reason. Three specific sentences will out-perform a page of adjectives.
Split essential from nice-to-have
If a qualification is genuinely mandatory for compliance, list it. Everything else belongs under development. A wishlist of eight tickets does not raise the quality of your applicants; it just reduces the number of them.
