Would I use a boilerplate? No. Do I think boilerplates are useful as a start for many people? Absolutely. I wish I could show you some of the job descriptions that companies put up using our software. They are hideous, wrong, uninformative, clearly showing you that people have no idea how to write a good job description.

We started off by creating some simple templates, as a guidance, so we help our customers make something nicer. We ended up building a small library and thus we decided to share them. (I guess that counts as marketing, but at least you get something useful)

Back to the original question.. are boileplates a bad thing? My answer is "it depends on what you would do without them". If you can write a half-decent description of the person you need, in your own words, then by all means don't use boilerplates.

If you're a very small company, hiring for the first time maybe and you need to start off by customising something, get some inspiration.. boilerplates are useful.

We make software for the small and medium company. We feel that software is not just the buttons. It's also the method. It's every kickstart you can give your customer to do his job a bit better. (for some, our guides on how to hire is the best form of help, others want to get the canned thing and make a few changes..)