Job Posting Requirements: What a Job Advert Must Contain
What a job advert must legally contain and must never say: pay and benefits disclosure, EEO wording, AI notices, and how long to keep postings.
The first job advert I wrote for my own company had four problems in it, and I would have argued with anyone who said so. No pay range. No benefits line. A phrase about a young and fast-moving team. And a question on the application form asking what the candidate currently earned.
None of those were decisions. They were defaults, copied from adverts written by people copying other adverts. What I had not understood is that a job advert answers to two bodies of law at once, and they behave nothing alike.
One is a list of things the advert must contain, and it is geographic. The other is a list of things it must never say, and it follows you everywhere. This covers both, plus the internal notice rules, the screening notices, and how long to keep the posting.
I build the hiring and people records tooling for businesses without an HR department at FirstHR. This is general information, not legal advice.
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What a Job Posting Must Contain
There is no federal statute setting out what a job advert must say. Federal law is almost entirely a list of prohibitions. Outside the labor certification rules for sponsoring a foreign worker, every affirmative content requirement a small employer faces comes from state law, a city ordinance, or a federal contract clause.
| Requirement | Source of the obligation | Who it binds |
|---|---|---|
| Good faith pay range | State and city pay transparency statutes | Employers hiring into a covered state, from one employee up |
| General description of benefits | A subset of the same statutes | Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington |
| Other compensation | The same subset | Where bonuses, commission, or tips are meaningful |
| Application deadline | Colorado | Any employer with an employee in Colorado |
| Equal opportunity statement | Federal contractor equal opportunity clauses | Contractors and subcontractors, not employers generally |
| Automated screening notice | A small number of state and city AI rules | Illinois, New York City, Maryland, and a growing list |
| Internal notice of the opportunity | Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey | Promotions and transfers, not only external hiring |
Read the last row first. An employer can fix the careers page, publish a clean external advert, then fill the role from a conversation nobody wrote down. In three states that sequence is its own violation, and it stays invisible until somebody complains.
Job Posting Requirements by State
Most of what a state can demand of a job advert falls into three groups: what the text must say, when your own employees hear about the opening, and how long the posting has to survive afterward.
The table gathers the eleven jurisdictions named across this guide. It is not every state carrying a pay range rule, and the pay transparency guide keeps that longer list current.
| Jurisdiction | What the advert itself has to carry | What else the state demands |
|---|---|---|
| Colorado | Pay range, benefits and other compensation, and an anticipated application deadline | All employees told the same calendar day and in time to apply, then the people the new hire works with regularly told who was selected within thirty days |
| Illinois | Pay scale and benefits, either in the text or through a link to a page carrying both | Promotions announced internally within fourteen calendar days, and the posting record kept five years |
| California | A pay scale in the text itself at fifteen or more employees, meaning what you expect to pay on the day of hire | Applications and personnel files held four years from five employees up, with any automated decision system data kept alongside them |
| Maryland | The wage range, plus benefits and any other compensation offered | Consent before facial recognition is used in an interview |
| Connecticut | Wages or a wage range plus a general description of benefits in every internal and public advert, from October 1, 2026 | No headcount threshold, and roles based elsewhere that report to a Connecticut supervisor, office, or worksite are covered |
| Minnesota | A salary range or fixed rate with benefits and other compensation, at thirty or more employees | No open-ended band, so the range needs a real top as well as a bottom |
| New Jersey | Pay or a range, plus a description of benefits and other compensation, at ten or more employees | Reasonable efforts to make promotion opportunities known in the affected department |
| District of Columbia | A pay range | Healthcare benefits disclosed before the first interview rather than in the advert text |
| Virginia | A wage, salary, or range in every public and internal posting, with salary history off the advert and the application form | No headcount threshold, and a fifteen business day window to cure a posting after written notice |
| Washington | A wage scale or salary range plus a general description of benefits and other compensation, at fifteen or more employees | A five business day window to correct a posting after written notice, for postings made through July 27, 2027 |
| New York City | A good faith pay range in every advertisement, promotions and transfers included | A bias audit inside the previous year, a published summary, and ten business days of notice before an automated tool screens a resident |
California is the row worth pausing on if you have been copying the Illinois approach, because the two differ on where the pay scale has to appear. Illinois accepts a link to a page carrying the pay scale and benefits. California expects the scale in the posting text itself.
The Pay Range Requirement, in Short
A good faith pay range is now required in more than a dozen states and a lengthening list of cities, with thresholds starting as low as one employee.
Two points matter here. Coverage turns on where the work will be performed and, in some states, on whether you already employ somebody there, not on the address on your incorporation papers. Colorado is the clearest worked example, and it cuts in both directions.
Colorado labor department guidance (INFO #9A, May 2024) says an employer with no Colorado employees at the time of the hiring decision is not covered at all, even if it considers Colorado applicants. Employ one person there and a remote posting is covered, including one that says Coloradans will not be considered.
Good faith is the second point, and it is a real standard rather than a formality. California defines the pay scale as the range the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position (Labor Code 432.3), and Minnesota bans an open-ended range outright.
The States That Want Benefits Too, Not Only Pay
In several states a pay range on its own is not a compliant posting. The advert must also carry a general description of the benefits and any other compensation the successful candidate would be eligible for. It is an easy line to leave out of an otherwise careful advert.
| Jurisdiction | Beyond the pay range | The detail that catches people |
|---|---|---|
| Colorado | Benefits, other compensation, and an application deadline | From one employee, and the deadline has no federal analogue |
| Connecticut | Wages or a wage range plus a general description of benefits | From one employee since October 1, 2026, and internal adverts count too |
| Illinois | Pay scale and benefits, at fifteen or more employees | A link to a page carrying the detail is accepted |
| Maryland | Benefits and any other compensation offered | Other compensation is read broadly: bonuses, commission, similar earnings |
| Minnesota | Salary range or fixed rate, plus benefits and other compensation | Thirty or more employees, and the range may not be open ended |
| New Jersey | Pay or range plus a description of benefits and other compensation | Ten or more employees, and it covers internal transfers |
| Washington | Wage scale or salary range plus a general description of benefits and other compensation | Fifteen or more employees, and the benefits line is required alongside the scale |
| District of Columbia | Disclosure that healthcare benefits exist | Tied to the stage before the first interview, not the advert text |
General description is the operative phrase, and it is less demanding than it sounds. Health coverage, retirement, paid leave, and any bonus structure, in one short paragraph, satisfies it. Add that paragraph even where you are not covered.
Per the Illinois Department of Labor, an employer can comply by putting the pay scale and benefits in the posting or by linking to a page that carries them. The link has to lead straight to that position’s pay, and a central benefits page counts only if it shows which benefits that position gets.
The EEO Statement: Required or Just Conventional
For most small employers the equal opportunity line at the bottom of an advert, known as the equal employment opportunity (EEO) statement, is convention rather than law. Federal statutes prohibit preference language in advertisements. They do not require a statement declaring that you do not discriminate.
Federal contractors are the exception, and the position there has moved. The disability clause at 41 CFR 60-741.5 still requires the contractor to state, in all solicitations or advertisements for employees, that qualified applicants will receive consideration and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.
The protected veteran clause at 41 CFR 60-300.5 carries its own version of that sentence, worded around protected veteran status. What disappeared is the older executive order clause covering race, religion, sex, and national origin, revoked in January 2025 with its implementing regulations rescinded afterward.
So keep the line if you have one, because candidates read it and it costs nothing. Do not treat it as compliance. And if you hold a federal contract, check the current wording with counsel rather than reusing a paragraph that has sat on your adverts since 2019.
Wording That Is Unlawful on Its Own Terms
It is unlawful to publish a job advertisement showing a preference for, or discouraging an application from, someone on the basis of a protected characteristic. The advert is the violation. Nobody has to be rejected and no decision has to be made.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission gives two worked examples: an advert seeking females, and an advert seeking recent college graduates. The second is the instructive one, because almost nobody writing it thinks they are excluding anybody.
Size does affect who the federal rules reach. Per the EEOC small business guidance, the race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, and genetic information prohibitions start at fifteen employees, and the age prohibition at twenty. State fair employment laws typically start lower, several of them at one employee, so the practical answer is to write as though you are covered.
| Wording in the advert | What a reader hears | What to write instead |
|---|---|---|
| Young, energetic team | A preference for younger candidates | Describe the pace and the size of the team |
| Recent graduate, entry level | An age filter | State the level of responsibility and the experience floor |
| Digital native | An age filter with better marketing | Name the tools used on day one |
| Two to four years of experience | A cap that screens out longer careers | State a minimum and stop |
| Native English speaker | A national origin preference | Describe the communication standard the job needs |
| Must be able to lift fifty pounds | A disability screen, unless the job requires it | Keep only if it is an essential function |
| Salesman, handyman, waitress | A sex preference inside a job title | Use the neutral title candidates search for |
The lifting row has a legitimate version. If the job requires lifting, say so and be ready to explain why it is essential. If it is there because it has always been there, it is a screen looking for a justification, which is the setup for a disparate impact problem.
Age Language Is Restricted Directly
The age statute restricts advertising by name. Under 29 U.S.C. 623(e), an advert indicating a preference, limitation, or specification based on age is unlawful in itself, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act carries a matching clause for race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
This catches employers who believe they are safe because they never wrote a number. The phrases that produce claims sound like culture rather than criteria: high energy, at the start of your career, fits our young team. The EEOC’s age regulation, 29 CFR 1625.4, lists terms such as young, college student, and recent college graduate as violations unless a statutory exception applies.
The maximum experience cap is the quietly damaging version. Two to four years of experience is not a description of the role, it is a ceiling, and a ceiling on experience is close to a ceiling on age. State the floor you need.
Salary History Bans Reach the Advert and the Form
Where a salary history ban applies it reaches everything attached to the posting: the advert text, the application form, the screening questionnaire, and anything an agency asks on your behalf. A clean interview script does nothing about an old question left on the form.
These bans tend to travel alongside pay transparency laws rather than separately, though the two do not map perfectly. Virginia is the clearest illustration. Va. Code 40.1-28.7:12, effective July 1, 2026, put a posting range requirement and a salary history ban into one section, with no headcount threshold under either half.
Three rules cover most of it. Do not ask, in any channel you control. Do not let your application form ask, the usual failure mode for a form built years ago. And tell any recruiter working for you not to ask, because a question asked on your behalf is your question. What stays permitted almost everywhere is asking what a candidate expects.
Where You Have to Tell Your Own Employees First
Three states require you to make an opportunity known to your existing workforce, and Colorado goes furthest: every opening, every employee, the same calendar day, and before the selection decision.
Colorado requires reasonable efforts to announce, post, or otherwise make known each job opportunity to all employees on the same calendar day, and far enough ahead of the hiring decision that somebody could realistically apply. An internal notice carries the same disclosures the external advert does, which is why writing the two separately doubles the work.
The post-selection notice is the second half of the Colorado rule. Within thirty calendar days of the hire, the employees the successful candidate will work with regularly have to be told that person’s name, their new job title, their former title if they came from inside, and how to register interest in similar openings.
Illinois requires promotion opportunities to be made known to all current employees no later than fourteen calendar days after an external posting goes up. New Jersey requires reasonable efforts to make them known in the affected department.
The three rules share one assumption: the quiet internal fill is where pay gaps get created, which is why a documented internal recruitment process is worth having outside the covered states too.
When You Have to Say That Software Is Screening
A small number of jurisdictions now require you to tell candidates when an automated tool is assessing them, and the requirements are notice-based rather than approval-based. No regulator has to approve the software before you use it. You have to say that you are using it, and two of the rules below also need the candidate’s consent first.
Illinois has two rules. Its artificial intelligence video interview statute, in force since 2020, requires three things before the interview: notice that artificial intelligence may be used to analyze the video, an explanation of how the tool works and what general types of characteristics it uses to evaluate applicants, and the applicant’s consent to be evaluated by it. Where consent is withheld, no evaluation is permitted.
The second Illinois rule is newer and much broader. An amendment to its human rights statute effective January 1, 2026 makes it a civil rights violation to use artificial intelligence in a way that discriminates, to use zip code as a proxy for a protected class, or to fail to give notice that it is being used for recruitment, hiring, and other employment decisions.
New York City is the strictest on process. Per the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, an automated employment decision tool may not be used unless it has had a bias audit within the previous year, a summary of the results is published, and each resident candidate gets at least ten business days of notice with the ability to request an alternative selection process.
Maryland goes narrower and asks for a signed waiver. Under Md. Code, Lab. and Empl. 3-717, an employer may not use a facial recognition service to create a facial template during an interview unless the applicant signs a consent waiver naming themselves, the interview date, and what they are agreeing to.
California took the broadest route of the four. Its civil rights regulations on automated decision systems, effective October 1, 2025, apply existing discrimination law to any automated system used in an employment decision and keep the system’s data with the employment records for at least four years.
The practical move is one standing paragraph in the advert template rather than a decision taken per role, because the per-role decision gets forgotten in a busy week. Write it to the Illinois and New York City notice standard, and treat consent as a separate step, since Illinois video interviews and the Maryland waiver both need the candidate’s agreement first.
How Long to Keep the Posting and the Applications
For employers the federal discrimination laws cover, one year is the floor, and it applies to both the advert and the applications it produced. State law runs longer in places, and the advert is the easiest record to lose.
The federal rules are specific about advertisements. Under 29 CFR 1627.3, employers must keep applications and resumes submitted in response to an advertisement, together with any advertisements or notices to the public or to employees about job openings, promotions, training, or overtime, for one year from the personnel action.
Two lines of record do that job, and neither takes longer than publishing the advert did. One line per posting recording what went out, where, and the date you can stop keeping it. One line per role recording when your own employees heard about the opportunity, which is the evidence Colorado, Illinois, and New Jersey would actually ask for.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Role and reference | Date published | Date closed | Where it ran | States in scope (work and candidate) | Pay range published | Benefits and other compensation line | Application deadline stated | Automated screening notice | Screenshot filed at | Keep until | On hold for a charge or claim |
| 2 | SAMPLE Service technician, REQ-104 | SAMPLE Careers page and one job board | SAMPLE Colorado, Illinois, remote | SAMPLE Yes | SAMPLE Yes | SAMPLE Yes | Not used for this role | SAMPLE /hiring/postings/REQ-104 | No | |||
| 3 | SAMPLE Bookkeeper, REQ-105 | SAMPLE Agency published on our behalf | SAMPLE Copy requested from agency | No | ||||||||
| 4 | ||||||||||||
| 5 | ||||||||||||
| 6 | ||||||||||||
| 7 | ||||||||||||
| 8 | ||||||||||||
| 9 | ||||||||||||
| 10 | ||||||||||||
| 11 |
Fill the keep-until column from the longest clock that touches the role rather than the shortest, and set the hold column the moment a charge arrives, because that is the point at which routine deletion stops being routine.
Colorado adds a clock from another direction: each employee’s job description and compensation, including changes over time, for the duration of employment plus two years. That is why a written job description stops being optional once you have people there.
The Check to Run Before You Publish
Eight steps, most of them a minute each, and all cheaper before publication than after. Build them into the template rather than somebody’s memory.
Nick Anisimov, FirstHR founder
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a salary range legally required in a job posting?
In a growing list of states and cities, yes, and the list changes every legislative session. Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, the District of Columbia, and Virginia all require a pay figure or range in the advert, and other states do too. Thresholds vary enormously: Colorado starts at one employee, New Jersey at ten, Illinois at fifteen, Minnesota at thirty. The requirement usually follows the location of the work and of the candidate, so a remote posting can pull you into a state you have never operated in. Where no law applies a range is still worth publishing, because adverts without one attract applications from people whose expectations you cannot meet.
Does a job advert have to include an equal opportunity statement?
For most small employers, no. Federal discrimination law prohibits preference language in advertisements but does not require a tagline saying you are an equal opportunity employer. The exception is federal contractors, whose equal opportunity clauses under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and the veterans statute require a statement in solicitations and advertisements that qualified applicants will be considered without regard to disability or protected veteran status. A separate, older clause that covered race, sex, religion, and national origin fell away when the executive order behind it was revoked in January 2025 and its implementing regulations were rescinded, so contractors should re-check their current wording with counsel. State and local government contracts can carry a similar clause, New Jersey public contracts among them. For everyone else the statement is conventional, useful, and voluntary.
What wording makes a job advert unlawful?
Any wording that signals a preference for, or puts off, applicants carrying a protected characteristic. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission illustrates the rule with a help wanted ad seeking females and one seeking recent college graduates, on the ground that the first discourages men and the second discourages people over forty. Phrases like young and energetic, digital native, and native English speaker are risky for the same reason, as are a lifting requirement the job does not actually need and a ceiling on years of experience. Federal coverage begins at fifteen employees for most protected characteristics and twenty for age, and most state fair employment laws start lower. The unusual part is the timing: the advert is the violation on the day it publishes, with no rejected candidate and no hiring decision required.
Do I have to post a job internally before advertising it externally?
Not necessarily first, but in a handful of states your own employees have to hear about the opening, and Colorado sets the tightest clock. There, every employee must be told about a job opportunity on the same calendar day, early enough before the hiring decision that a colleague could actually apply. A second notice is due no more than thirty calendar days after the hire. It goes to the people who will work with the new person regularly and gives the person’s name, new job title, the title they held before if they were already on staff, and how to register interest in similar openings. Illinois gives you up to fourteen calendar days once the job is posted externally to announce a promotion opportunity to current employees. New Jersey asks for reasonable efforts inside the affected department. The quiet internal fill is what all three rules are aimed at.
Do I have to tell candidates that AI is screening them?
In a small number of jurisdictions, yes, and the number is growing. Illinois has required notice, an explanation, and the candidate’s consent before artificial intelligence analyzes a video interview since 2020. Since January 1, 2026, a change to its human rights statute has also required notice whenever artificial intelligence is used in hiring, promotion, discipline, or other employment decisions. New York City will not let you use an automated employment decision tool on a resident unless it passed a bias audit in the past year, a summary of the results is published, and the candidate was told no less than ten business days ahead and can ask for an alternative process. Maryland requires the applicant’s consent before facial recognition is used in an interview.
How long do I have to keep job postings and applications?
One year under federal law, once the federal discrimination laws cover you, and that goes for both the posting and the applications. Application forms and other personnel and employment records must be kept one year from the date the record was made or the personnel action was taken, whichever is later. The age discrimination regulations separately cover advertisements, plus notices of openings, promotions, training, and overtime. Once a charge is filed, everything relevant must be preserved until final disposition. State rules run longer. Illinois requires five years for pay scale, benefits, and job posting records, and its guidance asks for a visual record of how the posting appeared. California, from five employees, requires four years for applications and personnel records, automated decision system data included.
Am I responsible if a recruiter publishes a non-compliant advert for me?
Yes, in substance. Pay transparency statutes put the duty on the employer, and several of them also reach the agency or job board that published the advert without letting you off. Illinois is explicit about it: a third party can be liable for a posting missing pay scale and benefits, and its only defense is showing that you never handed the information over, which lands the problem back on your desk. Outsourcing publication does not outsource the obligation. Salary history works the same way: a banned question a recruiter asks on your behalf counts as yours, and Illinois bars recruiters and agencies from screening on salary history as well. Two habits cover most of the exposure. Send agencies the finished compliant wording instead of a job title and a budget, and ask for a copy of what actually went live.
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