by Luke Doubler
Whether you realize it or not, the words and phrases you choose when writing a job description can affect the type of talent you are attracting. But you don’t have to write your job descriptions alone and just hope for the best. Here are three helpful websites that will analyze your description for gender-coded language.
1. Gender Decoder
Gender Decoder was inspired by a research paper written by three researchers who were studying the “different kinds of gender-coded language to men and women and recorded how appealing the jobs seemed and how much the participants felt that they ‘belonged’ in that occupation.
Their results showed that women felt that job adverts with masculine-coded language were less appealing and that they belonged less in those occupations. For men, feminine-coded adverts were only slightly less appealing and there was no effect on how much the men felt they belonged in those roles.”
You can view a full list of the gender-based words here. This site takes your job ad and checks for any of the words in the list and then calculates the amount of coded masculine and feminine words to reach an overall verdict.
Here’s a little more about the tool Gender Decoder is super easy to use and is free. All you have to do is copy and paste your job description into their box.
Then the results will tell you if it’s more masculine driven:
It even highlights the gender-based words used in your job description.
Or, if your ad is more feminine, it shows these results:
And shows the gender-based words:
2. Textio
Textio is an augmented writing tool, which means it can predict the results you’ll get as you write your job description based on real-time data it collects through its AI system. So this means that their machine is always learning, and the more you write, the more it learns and gives better results.
“Augmented writing is fueled by massive quantities of data, contributed by companies across industries and around the world. Textio’s predictive engine uses this data to uncover meaningful patterns in language, guiding you to stronger communication and better business outcomes.”
They claim that you can reach a wider pool of people and fill jobs faster based on the language you use in your job descriptions.
Here is how it works: You can either copy and paste an existing job description or start writing a new one from scratch. The tool will scan your words and show you a score to the right. This score predicts how well your ad will perform based on your description and how fast the position will be filled compared to others in the same industry and location. They say to aim for a score of 90 and higher.
You can find all your job descriptions in your dashboard with their relevant scores.
Then, you can improve ads with lower scores to make them better and more attractable to secure the right candidates for your jobs. If your score is in the orange, Textio shows you how you can change it based on different criteria, like corporate cliches.
Once a word is selected in orange, it will give you other possible options to use instead.
The words or phrases in green are positive phrases that will help your job ad get more clicks.
Textio shows you how to improve your score even more by green outlined words or phrases to boost your numbers.
It shows you in blue the words or phrases that are more masculine-coded.
And the words or phrases in purple are more feminine-coded words or phrases.
It also shows you the tone of your job description on the right-hand side. The further to the left is blue for masculine and further to the right is purple for feminine. The gray area is the middle where you want to be for gender-neutral.
After you have written your description and are satisfied, you can share it with your team members,
Or create a link and copy the URL to share with anyone outside of your organization,
Or just simply turn it to “Finished” and it will highlight it in green and it gives you a few options on what you can do next on the right-hand side.
You can check out this tool on a free trial basis, and then you have to choose one of their paid plans.
3. Applied
Like the other two tools above, Applied is another tool that informs you of the gender codes within your job description. It allows you to copy and paste or type in your job description so that their system can detect gender coding.
It gives you an Inclusion score out of 100. The closer you are to 100, the more gender-neutral your ad is. It also shows you the masculine and feminine words. It also gives you a Conversion score out of 100, letting you know how easy or difficult your description is to read and understand.
You can use the Applied tool for free, but it’s very limited on the information it shows you. You can request a demo to see how the whole system works or sign up for a free 1-week trial. When on a paid plan, you get access to more data, like the conversion score statistics and more.
Poor job descriptions will limit the number of applications you receive; therefore, it’s important to keep language in mind when writing these job descriptions and make sure you keep it gender-neutral to get the most diverse group of candidates for your open jobs.
Resources:
- http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com
- https://textio.com
- https://textio.ai/gendered-language-in-your-job-post-predicts-the-gender-of-the-person-youll-hire-cd150452407d
- https://www.beapplied.com/job-description-analysis-tool
- https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/job-descriptions/2018/5-must-dos-for-writing-inclusive-job-descriptions