{"id":40509,"date":"2023-10-20T15:08:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/what-words-in-your-job-ad-are-discouraging-more-people-from-applying-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:08:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:08:28","slug":"what-words-in-your-job-ad-are-discouraging-more-people-from-applying-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/what-words-in-your-job-ad-are-discouraging-more-people-from-applying-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"What words in your job ad are discouraging more people from applying? – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s difficult to increase gender diversity in an organisation if few women apply for jobs there in the first place.<\/p>\n
But individual choice doesn\u2019t exist in a vacuum \u2014 research shows<\/a> that using more masculine words in a job advertisement, such as\u00a0leader, competitive\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0dominant,\u00a0<\/em>can make it less likely women will apply.<\/p>\n An organisation that describes a role as requiring a \u201csuperior ability to satisfy customers\u201d, as opposed to\u00a0someone who is \u201csensitive to clients\u2019 needs\u201d, may inadvertently skew interest towards male candidates, for example.<\/p>\n Male-dominated areas, which tend to be higher-paid, are more likely to use such language when recruiting.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s with this problem in mind that the Victorian government has announced that its anti-discrimination pilot program will target language with traditionally masculine or feminine connotations in job advertisements.<\/p>\n This week marks the beginning of the 18-month\u00a0Recruit Smarter<\/em>\u00a0program,<\/em>\u00a0which aims to tackle unconscious bias against women and people from diverse cultural backgrounds.<\/p>\n In an Australian first, the pilot\u00a0will de-identify personal details, such as names, genders, ages, and locations, to reduce potential bias during the application process.<\/p>\n Participating organisations come from both the public and private sectors. The Department of Premier and Cabinet, the Department of Treasury and Finance, WorkSafe, VicHealth, the Transport Accident Commission, Westpac, Ai Group and PwC are some of the partners to have signed up.<\/p>\n The trial will include use of programmed bias mitigation prompts throughout the selection process, reminding selection committees of common biases, hotspots and other potential bias hazards in job interviews.<\/p>\n Human resources and other staff involved in recruitment will be trained to recognise and prevent unconscious bias in processes.<\/p>\n The state announced<\/a>\u00a0it would develop the pilot in an effort to boost diversity in the public and private sectors in May last year. An implementation committee\u00a0spent\u00a0nine months \u201cfinessing\u201d the structure of the pilot, says the government.<\/p>\n Unconscious bias in recruiting remains a problem in Australia. A 2010 paper\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0to attain as many interviews as an Anglo job applicant, an\u00a0Italian person must submit 12% more job applications, an Indigenous person 35%, a Middle Eastern person 64%, and\u00a0a Chinese person 68% more.<\/p>\n Recognising a similar problem in the UK, the British civil service\u00a0committed<\/a>\u00a0in 2015 to introducing name blind recruitment for all jobs below senior civil service level. In the UK, the NHS, BBC and a range of private organisations have vowed to do the same.<\/p>\n Apart from ensuring basic fairness, there may actually be benefits to workforce diversity: diverse teams may be better at solving complex problems.<\/p>\n A\u00a0study<\/a> of 28 teams found those that were heterogeneous solved complex tasks better than the homogeneous teams. They noted the diverse teams exhibited a higher level of creativity and a broader thought process.<\/p>\nRecruit smarter, recruit\u00a0wider<\/h3>\n
Better returns from diverse teams<\/h3>\n