With unemployment in the U.S. at the lowest rate (3.9%) in 19 years, companies like Apple, Boeing, McDonalds and Delta Airlines are hiring former felons. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo describes this massive talent pool: “70 million Americans have a criminal record—that’s 1 in 3 adults. There are currently 2.3 million people behind bars in this… Read more »
An applicant tracking system migration is one of the biggest HR projects you’ll face in talent acquisition. Are you curious which ATS systems leading employers are moving to? As part of our research into ATS market share (see Top ATS Systems Used by the Fortune 500 in 2019 (Workday Beats Taleo) and The Top Applicant Tracking Systems… Read more »
Do the words in your job descriptions contain LGBTQ bias? If you’re hiring 100+ people per year, it’s more likely than not that your job descriptions contain LGBTQ bias, according to Ongig’s Text Analyzer job description software. I’ll give you some tips to remove LGBTQ bias below. First off, what is LGBTQ? The acronym stands… Read more »
Early Amazon employee Glenn Fleishman told Internet History Podcast that Amazon had a hard time hiring developers in its early days. We decided to run Amazon’s first known job posting (from August 22, 1994) through Ongig’s Text Analyzer software to see how his job description text scores using today’s best technology. Ongig’s Text Analyzer is… Read more »
Job posting wording has a direct impact on your quality applications. Here are 7 tips that should help you nail your wording. Job Posting Wording Tip #1: Keep Your Job Title Simple The most important first words of your job posting are those in its job title. The job title affects whether a candidate opens up the… Read more »
Using the wrong personal pronoun (he, she, his, her, etc.) can turn off groups of candidates. Here are 3 examples of personal pronouns NOT to use along with synonyms I recommend. Personal Pronoun/Job Description Tip #1: Don’t Refer to Candidate as “He” Check out this first job ad below. In the second paragraph it reads:… Read more »
A talent leader asked me when she should use adverbs in writing job descriptions. It turns out using too many adverbs in your job descriptions reduces your apply rate (more on that below). Reminder on the definition of adverbs: adverbs are intensifier words that give greater definition to an adjective, verb or other adverb. Most… Read more »
2020 Editor’s NOTE — We have the updated version for 2020 here: Top Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS Software) in 2020 Enjoy! — Rob ——————- Workday is the #1 ATS system used by Fortune 500 companies, narrowly beating Taleo. That’s what we found after a review of the 476 Fortune 500 companies that show their applicant tracking… Read more »
Masculine vs. feminine job descriptions remains a hot topic these days. Last week I shared The Top 10 Masculine Biased Words Used in Job Descriptions. If you’re trying to gender-neutralize your job ads, eliminating those top 10 masculine-biased words is a good start. Some of you then asked: “What about feminine words — which words in job… Read more »
What are the top masculine-biased words used in job descriptions? Knowing if you have masculine vs. feminine job descriptions is a hot topic these days. Most companies want to hire more women. This week, I used Ongig’s Text Analyzer software (the tool for gender bias in job descriptions) to find out. I had Text Analyzer… Read more »
Do your job postings have clinical-sounding words? Do they sound “prescriptive”. Perhaps they look like an attorney wrote them — full of “legalese”. Your job posting should, of course, be an ad…not a legal contract. Check out the beginning of this nursing job ad below (analyzed by Ongig’s Text Analyzer job description software). Ongig’s software… Read more »
When Kleenex (after 62 years!) scrapped its “Mansize” Kleenex tissues (see the below tweet that helped spark the social movement for Kleenex to change), it got me thinking about what else might need to get gender-neutralized. Hi @Kleenex_UK. My 4yo son asked me what was written here. Then he asked, why are they called mansize?… Read more »
How many bullets should you use in a job description? Does your job posting have too many bullets? Great questions. I’ve been asked a bunch of these job description bullet-related questions. I did my best to answer those and more below. It’s all the best practices I know about the most effective use of bullets… Read more »
On the heels of 7 Controversial Stories About Job Descriptions, here’s another cautionary tale of poor wording in job postings. It was discovered by Wendy Lu, a self-prolaimed “Proud Disabled Woman” (vocal cord paralysis). Wendy found a job ad posted by Newsday, the Long Island-based newspaper in New York, for a general assignment reporter. It included… Read more »
Poorly written job descriptions share certain things in common. I’ve analyzed (by hand) many thousands of job descriptions and created this checklist of the”worst job description practices” to avoid. 1. Poorly Written Job Descriptions Have Long Job Titles The job title is key. It’s usually the first thing a candidate sees. Job titles with 1… Read more »
