4 ways to make your job postings more inclusive.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has become one of the biggest challenges for recruiters in recent years.  

Attracting diverse talent can bring a multitude of benefits for your business. People from different backgrounds have acquired different experiences, skills, and knowledge. This can help your business increase productivity, innovation, and reduce the retention rate. So, it’s no secret that businesses these days are making it a priority to capitalize on these advantages before their competitors.  

But even if businesses want to hire diverse talent, sometimes it takes more than just saying it. Sometimes, it means changing your entire talent acquisition strategy altogether. And that starts with how you write your job postings. 

Job postings are the blueprint for your job and it’s how you entice your ideal candidates to apply. Though, you may be surprised that there’s more to job postings than just the job details.  

At TalentWorld, we treat our job postings like advertisements. This means we write with the intention of attracting the ideal candidate persona. we’d like to share our key insights as to how you can be more inclusive in your job postings to attract diverse and qualified talent.  

1.    Remove Gender-Coded Words 

Gender-coded words are any words or phrases that are historically associated with a specific gender. If coded too heavily, it can send the message to candidates that you’re only looking for that specific gender and that can influence the types of candidates that apply.  

Below is a breakdown of some common gender-coded words we’ve seen in job postings: 

Below is a breakdown of some common gender-coded words we’ve seen in job postings: 

Masculine-Coded Words 

• Driven 
• Determined 
• Fearless 
• Hustler 
• Self-Sufficient 
• Expert 

Feminine-Coded Words 

• Interpersonal 
• Trustworthy 
• Empathetic 
• Responsive  
• Committed 
• Support 

And don’t forget your job titles! Make sure you’re using gender-neutral titles like “Crew Member” instead of “Crew Man” and “Maintenance Person” instead of “Handyman”.  

If you need help decoding your job postings, we recommend using this free online tool.  

2.    Separate the mandatory requirements from the “nice-to-haves.” 

I’m sure all of those in the talent acquisition community have by now seen the statistic that women are less likely to apply for a job posting if they don’t meet all the qualifications – versus men who apply if they only meet 60% of them.  

It's a sad reality that women often let their doubts stop them from applying despite their impressive resumes – especially in male-dominated industries like STEM. It often takes years of hard work for women to achieve the confidence that a fresh new male grad has from the start. This has to do with how society operates, but thankfully the tides in recent years have been changing and more women are being seen as leaders in their respective industries.  

To make sure we’re giving everyone an equal opportunity to apply – our recruiters at TalentWorld separate the mandatory requirements from the “nice-to-haves” in our job postings. This makes it clear from the start what the expectations are and if you meet the job requirements enough to apply – leaving no room for self-doubt.  

3.    Accessibility  

There are many ways you can make your job posting more accessible to disabled folks. 

Make sure your website is compatible with screen readers and that you have up-to-date and consistent navigation for headings, lists, and titles.  

Likewise, choosing a font that is both easily read with a good width, size, and colour is an important decision. Choose a font that’s easily readable like Tahoma, Arial, and Times New Roman or make sure your website font has a font that’s similar.  

For manual jobs, clearly state the physical requirements so that candidates know the expectations ahead of time. But make sure that the descriptions closely align with the work being done. For example, use “communicates” instead of “speaks” or “talks” and “responds” instead of “notice” or “see”. These may seem like little changes, but to someone with a disability, it’s huge.  

And finally, don’t forget to include an accessibility statement at the end of your job posting. This can include telling candidates to reach out if they need any accommodations during the application process and information on who to contact.  

4.    Remove racial bias 

Racial bias is still a huge problem in the talent acquisition community. According to the University of California Berkeley and the University of Chicago, applicants with black sounding names but with similar qualifications were called back 10% fewer times. Even though this happens further along in the recruitment process, this is still a huge issue and may make POC candidates hesitant to apply.  

Changing this takes more than just writing a diversity statement at the bottom of your job posting – it has to come from all sides of your organization. But there are things you can do within your job posting to make it more inclusive to diverse candidates. For example, include benefits that may appeal to a diverse set of candidates, like if your company offers diversity training programs, flexible work schedules, mentorship programs, etc. This can help candidates from all backgrounds feel like your organization is taking a proactive stance on diversity from the very start.  

TalentWorld’s People-First Mindset 

At TalentWorld, our recruiters know that finding the best people for the job starts with a well-crafted job posting. And we’re really good at them – in 2022, we had an Indeed apply rate that was DOUBLE the industry average.  

We know that it takes work to attract top talent, especially in an industry like ours that's so focused on people. That’s why we try our best to providing an inclusive and accommodating recruitment process from job postings to the first day and beyond. 

To learn more about how we attract and retain top talent in a competitive job market, click here to read our whitepaper.