Writing a job ad that attracts the right candidates in Switzerland: structure, salary, legal rules and mistakes to avoid

Write the job as candidates search for it, not your internal grade: “Accountant (federal diploma or equivalent), 80 to 100%, Lausanne” rather than “Specialist Finance Operations II”. The title is what search engines and platforms index: it is your job keyword. Workload and municipality belong in the title.

Activity, size, location, and what truly sets you apart. The rest is on your website. Candidates are looking for a job, not a company history.

What the person will actually do in an ordinary week, with the tools and the people involved. Each line starts with an action verb. Beyond seven lines, the job is vague or is two jobs.

Three to five essential requirements (diploma, experience, language with its level, permit), then the assets. Every unnecessary essential requirement turns away candidates who would have done the job. A federal diploma required where equivalent experience would do is the most frequent mistake.

The most read block and the one most often missing. A salary range, the workload, the telework days, the type of contract and the start date. Collective agreements and the cantonal minimum wage set the floor: see our guide to the minimum wage by canton.

How many interviews, over how many weeks, and who answers. A named person with their role beats a generic address. State a response time you will keep.

The documents requested, nothing more: a CV and, if you insist, a few lines of motivation. Certificates and diplomas are requested at the interview stage, not before.

No Swiss law requires the salary to be stated in an ad. EU directive 2023/970 has required, since 7 June 2026, a range in the ad or before the first interview, in the EU only. Our update on salary transparency in Switzerland follows the transposition country by country.

On Licorn, every candidate enters their target salary before any contact: CHF 72,000 median, 84,000 for those currently employed. A candidate who knows your range and applies anyway has already accepted your salary level: you gain an interview.

A range of 10 to 15% between bottom and top, stating 12 or 13 months, and what raises it: experience, federal diploma, languages. “Depending on profile” says nothing; “CHF 75,000 to 85,000 over 13 months depending on experience” says everything.

In the cantons and cities with a minimum wage (Geneva CHF 24.59 per hour, Neuchâtel, Jura, Ticino, Basel-Stadt, then Zurich and Winterthur once in force) and in sectors with a collective agreement, the minimum is known to all: showing it tells the candidate nothing, hiding it raises doubts.

Say whether the salary is over 13 months, whether there is a bonus, a contribution to health insurance premiums, a transport pass. Those are concrete arguments, unlike “attractive benefits”. Our guide to the 13th salary recalls what is owed or not.

Art. 3 of the Gender Equality Act prohibits any discrimination on grounds of sex, direct or indirect, expressly in hiring, and also covers marital status, family situation and pregnancy. An ad reserved for one sex or written in the masculine only is not forbidden as such, but it is evidence of a discriminatory refusal to hire. Write job titles in both genders or in a neutral form, and mention neither family situation nor availability “without constraints”.

The rejected person may demand written reasons for the refusal and go to court within three months (art. 8) to obtain compensation of up to three months’ salary (art. 5). The lighter burden of proof of art. 6 does not apply to hiring, but a badly written ad is the first exhibit in the file.

Swiss private law does not expressly prohibit an age limit in an ad; only art. 328 of the Code of Obligations, which protects the employee’s personality, can be invoked. The Swiss Job Market Monitor counted for SECO that 9.9% of ads published in Switzerland between 2006 and 2017 set an age limit, most often 45, and that “young” or “younger” counts as a relative limit. Such a limit deprives you of nearly a quarter of candidates: on Licorn, 23% are over 45.

The Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons guarantees EU and EFTA nationals equal treatment with Swiss nationals in access to employment (Annex I, art. 9 AFMP). Requiring “a valid work permit or the right to obtain one” is allowed; reserving a job “for Swiss nationals” is not. For third-country nationals, quotas and priority for the domestic workforce apply: see our guides to work permits and to hiring a cross-border worker.

In the occupational groups where unemployment reaches 5%, the job must be reported to the regional employment centre (RAV) before any publication and remains reserved for five working days for registered jobseekers. The 2026 list of occupations concerned and the procedure are in our guide.

The Data Protection Act limits collection to the data needed for the purpose pursued (art. 6 FADP), and art. 328b of the Code of Obligations only allows the employer to process data concerning the employee’s suitability for the job. A photo, date of birth, nationality or family situation have no place among the documents required. The questions forbidden in an interview are forbidden in the ad too.

Every unnecessary “essential” turns away candidates who would have done the job, starting with those who read honestly. Three to five real requirements are enough.

Internal grades, level anglicisms and creative titles are not typed into a search engine. The job, the workload, the municipality.

It is the most read line in the ad, and it is empty. Employed candidates, who ask CHF 12,000 more than the others, will not apply to find out.

Three lines that decide for many candidates whether the job is possible at all, before the salary question: 44% accept part time, 14% refuse telework, 38% live in France.

The candidate is looking for a job. The company’s history, values and vision fit in three lines and a link.

“Young and dynamic”, “native French speaker”, “available without constraints”: an age limit, an origin, a family situation. Prefer the language level (C1), the real working hours and the skills.

An ad without a name or a deadline announces a process without an answer. Name the recruiter, give the response time, keep it.

Target salary, workload, telework, contract, location: everything is in the profile, and that is what makes our barometer possible. The recruiter does not guess what attracts, they read it.

The recruiter describes the job with the salary, the workload, the telework, the contract and the location, and sends it to the profiles whose conditions match. The 21% of candidates who are listening, and read no ad at all, are reached by a proposal that respects their conditions, and by no other means.

Licorn’s agent offers candidates the ads relevant to their profile, which saves you from multiplying platforms. Our guide for recruiters explains the rest.