Graduate Job Description Template: Free Download and Worked Example

A graduate job description has to convince someone who has never heard of your company that the role is worth applying for, and set out the criteria you will shortlist on. Plenty of adverts miss both, usually because they were adapted from a senior role, hide the salary or ask for a 2:1 by default.

This guide covers each section with wording you can borrow, then a full worked example. The free Word template at the end follows the same structure. If you are still deciding how to hire, start with our guide on how to hire graduates in the UK.

What should a graduate job description include?

A graduate job description should cover the eleven sections below, from job title to equal opportunities statement. Put the first four at the top, because they decide whether anyone reads the rest.

How do you write each section?

Write for a reader who knows nothing about your company. Salary and requirements get their own sections below; here is the rest.

• Job title. Use the words graduates search for: "Graduate" or "Junior" plus a standard job name. Internal grades ("Associate II") and novelty titles ("Growth Ninja") match nobody's search.
• Location and working pattern. "Hybrid" can mean one office day or four, so be exact: "Manchester, hybrid: Tuesday to Thursday in the office, 37.5 hours a week".
• Contract and start date. Many final-year students job hunt alongside their studies, so a start window ("September 2027, or sooner") lets them apply now.
• About us. Two or three lines on what you do, who for and how big the team is. Graduates often have not heard of the SMEs that would teach them most, as we explore in why great SMEs struggle to attract graduate talent.
• The role. Why the job exists, who they report to, and what good looks like after a year.
• What you'll do. "Support the team with various tasks" says nothing; "Write and schedule our Instagram posts, and report each week on what performed best" lets a candidate picture the job.
• What we offer. Lead with training, mentoring and progression. "A named mentor and a funded qualification in your first year" beats "excellent development opportunities".
• How to apply. Ask for a CV plus a short note or two questions, and publish the stages with rough dates so graduates can plan around exams.
• Equal opportunities. Employers must make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for disabled candidates, such as letting someone do a written test on a computer, so say how to ask.

Should a graduate job description ask for a 2:1?

Usually not. Unless the job genuinely depends on academic attainment, a 2:1 cut-off screens out capable people without telling you whether they can do the work, and fewer large employers now use one.

ISE data published in October 2025 shows 47% of employers specifying a 2:1 as a minimum, down from 71% in 2015/16, with 20% asking for a 2:2. These are mostly large employers, which received an average of 140 applications per graduate vacancy in the ISE's 2025 Student Recruitment Survey. If more than half of them can sift without a 2:1 filter, so can a business hiring one or two graduates.

Instead, ask what the requirement is standing in for. It is usually a proxy for something you can test directly: clear writing, comfort with numbers, analysing information or organising your own work. Our article Your Best Graduate Hire Might Not Look Like Your Job Description makes the case for hiring the capability rather than the profile.

Then test those skills with a short written task, a spreadsheet exercise or a structured interview question. A requirement you never assess is just a filter.

Should you put the salary on a graduate job advert?

Yes. Adverts that show pay attract more applicants, graduates are wary of "competitive", and the government is consulting on making pay information in adverts a legal requirement.

• More applications. Reed.co.uk's analysis of jobs posted on its site from January to May 2024 found that adverts disclosing a salary received 60% more applications than those that did not. That is one job board's data, not a controlled trial, but it matches what graduates say.
• Graduates distrust "competitive". In a Prospects Luminate poll of 194 students and graduates, published in May 2022, only 48% would apply for a job with a "competitive" salary, and 34% would not.
• It still makes you stand out. In the three months to June 2026, 58% of UK job postings on Indeed included pay information, below a high of 64% in September 2024.
• The law may change. On 14 July 2026 the government opened a consultation on equal pay and pay discrimination that proposes "a requirement for all employers to publish pay information in job adverts", or to give it in writing before the interview where there is no advert. It closes on 27 October 2026 and nothing is law yet, but it is worth getting ahead of.

When you set the figure, check it at least meets the National Living Wage, which is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from 1 April 2026: about £24,800 a year for a 37.5-hour week. For context, the median starting salary reported by ISE members, mostly large employers, was £33,000 in 2025. If you cannot match that, sell what you do offer: early responsibility, real training and a pay review at 12 months.

Our guide to the cost of hiring a graduate in the UK covers the full budget beyond salary, and the UK Graduate Salary Report 2026 has more benchmarks.

How do you make a graduate job description inclusive?

Describe the job, not the person you imagine doing it: avoid wording that signals age, sex or other protected characteristics, drop requirements the job does not need, and make adjustments easy to ask for.

• Avoid "recent graduate". Acas lists "recent graduate" and "highly experienced" among phrases that can discriminate on age, and says you must be able to show a good reason for any requirement in your advert. "An entry-level role with full training" describes the job without implying an age.
• Ask for languages, not nationalities. Acas's own example is "German-speaking sales rep" rather than "German sales rep".
• Balance gendered wording. A 2011 study by Gaucher, Friesen and Kay found that women rated adverts with more masculine-coded wording, such as "competitive", "dominant" and "leader", as less appealing, because the wording lowered their sense of belonging rather than their confidence in their skills. Pair "drive results" with words like "support", "collaborate" and "develop".
• Drop requirements the job does not need. GOV.UK's guidance on recruitment and disabled people says a job specification must not exclude disabled people. Its example is a job with occasional travel that could be done by train: the employer should not ask for a driving licence.
• Keep applications accessible. Acas warns that insisting on handwritten forms, where handwriting is not part of the job, can disadvantage people with dyslexia or arthritis.
• Use plain English. Short sentences, "you" and "we", and no unexplained acronyms.

Worked example: a Graduate Marketing Executive job description

Here is the template filled in for a fictional SME. Larchfield Living is invented for illustration, and its salary and benefits are examples, not benchmarks.

Graduate Marketing Executive, Larchfield Living (Leeds)

• Location and working pattern: Leeds city centre, hybrid: Tuesday to Thursday in the office. 37.5 hours a week with flexible start and finish times.
• Salary: £27,000 to £29,000 a year, with a salary review at 12 months.
• Contract and start date: Permanent, full-time, starting September 2027, or sooner if you are available.

About us. Larchfield Living designs homeware and sells it online across the UK. We are a team of 35, and you would join a marketing team of four where your work is seen from week one.

The role. Most of our sales come through our website, email and social media, and we need someone to help run campaigns from brief to results. You will report to our Marketing Manager. By the end of your first year, we would expect you to run our weekly customer emails and lead a seasonal campaign of your own.

What you'll do

• Write and schedule posts for our Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest accounts
• Draft and build our weekly customer emails, testing subject lines to learn what works
• Pull together a weekly performance report from Google Analytics and share what you learned
• Brief our freelance photographers and designers, and keep product launches on schedule
• Read customer reviews and competitor campaigns to find ideas worth testing

What we're looking for. Essential:

• Clear, accurate writing: you will write for customers from week one, and we will ask for a short writing task
• Comfort with numbers: reading a simple report and spotting what has changed
• Organisation: keeping several small deadlines on track at once
• Curiosity about why people buy, and a willingness to test and learn

Nice to have: some experience running social media (for a society, a job or your own project), or using Canva.

A degree in any subject, or equivalent experience. You don't need to tick every box: if this sounds like you, we would like to hear from you.

What we offer

• A funded professional marketing qualification in your first year
• A named mentor outside the marketing team, plus weekly one-to-ones with your manager
• A clear route to Marketing Executive, reviewed at 12 months
• 25 days' holiday plus bank holidays, and a 5% employer pension contribution

How to apply. Send your CV and short answers to two questions to careers@example.com by 16 November 2026:

1. Tell us about a time you persuaded people to do something.
2. Which brand's social media do you rate, and why?

What happens next:

• Week of 23 November: a 20-minute video call with our Marketing Manager
• Week of 7 December: an in-person interview, including a short writing task
• By 18 December: a decision, and feedback for everyone we interview

Equal opportunities. Larchfield Living is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from everyone. If you need any adjustments to apply or to attend an interview, tell us and we will make them.

Notice what it leaves out: no 2:1, no "recent graduate", no "competitive salary" and no "other duties as required".

What are the most common graduate job description mistakes?

The big ones are hiding the salary, copying a senior job description, asking for experience a graduate cannot have, and stacking up requirements the role does not need.

Where should you advertise a graduate job description?

Advertise where graduates already look: graduate jobs boards, university careers services, LinkedIn and your own careers page.

GradWorx Attract puts a finished job description on the GradWorx jobs board for £250 (30 days), £350 (60 days) or £450 (90 days) per role, ex VAT. Graduates find it on GradWorx Search, the free board with hundreds of live graduate roles, internships, placements and apprenticeships across the UK.

To start conversations rather than wait for applications, GradWorx Match has Grace, GradWorx's AI, identify, prioritise and explain the graduates you should be talking to, and you message them directly, for £795 per role, ex VAT. Both sit in one employer account with no agency commission and no long-term contract. See employer pricing, or book a free Discovery Call from GradWorx for Employers.

Hiring your first graduate? Read How to Hire Your First Graduate as an SME alongside our complete SME guide to hiring graduates.

How do you use this graduate job description template?

Download the Word file below and work through it from top to bottom:

1. Replace every bracketed prompt with your own details.
2. Delete each grey italic guidance note once you have acted on it, and the footer line.
3. Cut anything the job does not need, especially from the essentials.
4. Read it aloud, and rewrite any sentence you would not say to a candidate.

It is free to use and edit, and you don't need to credit GradWorx.