Use Gender-Neutral Language Let’s start with the obvious. When female-identified talent reads job descriptions that say of the ideal candidate: “He will design, code, and test across our distributed, open source database,” there’s a strong indicator in the language that this position isn’t for her. “S/he will design, code, and test” is just as excluding: talent that doesn’t identify with the gender binary will understand this as a subtle signal that your organization isn’t looking to employ them, either. When you describe your ideal candidate, dispense with gendered pronouns altogether. “You will design, code, and test”; “you will be accountable for”; “you will help us disrupt”; and so on. “They”/“them” and “you” are your most inclusive available pronouns; but “you” gives talent the impression that they’re being spoken to directly. Choose one of these options and commit to it.
Use Inclusive Language Pronouns aren’t the only words that send subtle messages to prospects about your ideal hire, influencing whether or not they decide to respond. Study after study has found that certain language “skews” male or female, subconsciously appealing to or deterring talent that identifies with a certain gender.
<aside> 💡 You’ve probably heard the obvious ones. “Rockstar,” “ninja,” and “guru” tend to signal a male-dominated culture and repel female-identified talent: each of these words is historically associated with men. The same is true of language such as “kickass,” “crushing it,” “dominate,” and the Silicon Valley-favorite “work hard, play hard.” Not only do these words and phrases imply that the organization won’t be welcoming—or worse, that it will be hostile—to women; they also imply that the culture isn’t inclusive of older talent. Even less “aggressive” language—“fast-paced,” “ambitious,” “competitive”—has implications. These modifiers have historically been understood as positive attributes for men and negative attributes for women. What’s the female coded language, you wonder? It includes “collaboration,” “cooperation,” “understanding,” “loyalty,” “passion,” “support,” and “dedication.” You might assume, then, that a best practice would be to balance “masculine” and “feminine” language in your job description; but research actually shows that altering the vocabulary to be more receptive to women does nothing to deter men from applying.
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On the other hand, you risk driving away female identified talent any time you use masculine-coded language. Our suggestion? Lean toward “feminine” language. Male talent won’t self-select out; so replacing “determined” with “dedicated,” “managing” with “developing,” and “They/their” and “you/your” are the most inclusive pronouns to use in your job descriptions, and in your messaging in general.
(At Gem, we prefer “you” because it gives our prospective candidates the impression that they’re being spoken to directly.) These pronouns alienate neither women nor nonbinary talent.
The word “stakeholder,” for example “serves as a signal to people of color that their contributions may not be valued.” Blanche is right; but the impact is even broader than people of color: highly corporate language suggests that any talent needs some insider knowledge if they’re going to be successful at the organization. So try “partners” or “collaborators.” Indeed, wherever you can drop the jargon and the acronyms (“KPIs,” “SLAs,” “P&L”), do so. You won’t alienate talent that’s self-taught, or that isn’t already in your industry and doesn’t know the jargon. The same goes for language that might alienate disabled talent. We just typed “25 pounds” into the search feature at Indeed.com, and nearly 14,000 jobs came up. One-third of the first page-results were for marketing jobs—all of which said that the right candidate would have to lift 25 or more pounds on occasion. Imagine how many great marketers who happen to be disabled decide not to apply for these jobs, for which the actual hire probably never has to lift more than their laptop. So don’t add it to your JD if it’s actually not a physical requirement—or if a disability hire could have accommodations if 25 pounds ever did have to be lifted.
While it’s important to learn to be more thoughtful about word choices in your writing and speech, there’s technology out there that can help you screen for language that might suggest bias in your JDs. Augmented writing tools will analyze your job descriptions (you can use them for email outreach as well), identify potentially biased language, highlight those words, and recommend alternatives for a more demographically-inclusive posting. And if you transfer this inclusive language practice into your email outreach, it will mean higher response rates for your efforts.