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 postings are biased towards attracting women.”

I used Ongig’s Text Analyzer software (the tool for gender bias in job descriptions) to find out.

I had Text Analyzer review 48,246 random job descriptions from U.S.-based companies of all sizes.

Note: Text Analyzer has a proprietary vocabulary library culled from social science and artificial intelligence research that flags masculine and feminine words like those shown below. 

Here’s an example of a Facebook job description analyzed by Text Analyzer.

gender bias in job descriptions

The Facebook job posting above is analyzed by Ongig’s Text Analyzer. 77.78% of the words Facebook uses are feminine, giving this job ad a high score for being inclusive to women.   

Below is the list of the top 10 feminine words that Text Analyzer has found in job descriptions:

Top 10 Feminine Words Used in Job Descriptions

  1. support
  2. share
  3. responsible
  4. understand (or understanding)
  5. together
  6. committed
  7. interpersonal
  8. feel
  9. collaborate (or collaboration)
  10. connect

If you want to attract more women, using words like the 10 above in your job postings is a good start. You might combine that move with eliminating most or all of the masculine words I wrote about in The Top 10 Masculine Biased Words Used in Job Descriptions.

For more tips on writing job descriptions, check out our How to Write a Job Description — Best Practices & Examples.

Why I wrote this?

Ongig is on a mission to transform job descriptions. Ongig’s Text Analyzer eliminates gender bias, other biases and, overall, makes your job ads more attractive.  If you’re hiring 100+ people per year, we’re happy to show you how to gender-neutralize your job descriptions. Just click the demo request button on this page or email us at friends@ongig.com. Thanks!

by in Writing Job Descriptions