Today’s companies strive to have a diverse workforce to bring together a greater range of talent with unique abilities, backgrounds, and experiences. But while the makeup of the modern workplace has evolved, unfortunately job listings have not.

While many organizations have realized that prioritizing diversity on their teams is crucial to their success, the hiring practices those same firms use to recruit new talent can undercut their plans. Unnecessary educational requirements, competencies, and job locations can unintentionally exclude a large portion of qualified workers, which is why job listings need to evolve.

Companies seeking to hire a diverse workforce and attract more people of color, women, LGBTQ+ workers, disabled folks, and employees of different ages and social classes could be sabotaging their own efforts with stale, outmoded job descriptions (JDs). It’s a daunting task to overhaul your whole system, but by implementing some key changes and a few best practices, HR experts and executives say creating inclusive job descriptions doesn’t have to be a mystery. Here’s how to get started.

10 Best Practices for Creating Inclusive Job Descriptions

1. Choose your words carefully.

The words you use in your job descriptions send a powerful message to your potential applicants, so you’ll want to choose them consciously and carefully. Haphazardly using gendered language or non-inclusive pronouns and titles in your listings can unintentionally send negative messages, and even turn off some diverse candidates from applying altogether.

Here’s a closer look at how specific terms in job ads could repel qualified applicants, as well as how to adjust your language to be more inclusive.

• The term “able-bodied” is a common filler word in job descriptions that can exclude disabled people. Avoid using it completely and instead mention if the role will require heavy lifting or standing for extended periods of time.
• Phrases like “recent college graduate” and “digital native” show a bias for younger workers and can suggest your company has an age range in mind for candidates, so opt for other ageless terms instead.
• “Salesman” or “saleswoman” relays that you’re looking for a candidate of a specific gender, so swap them out for a gender-neutral title like “salesperson” to be more welcoming to candidates of all genders and gender identities.
• Vague terms like “ninja” and “rockstar” add no additional context to your job ads and should be avoided.
• Using “he/she” pronouns to describe the responsibilities of the role could turn off nonbinary candidates, so swap these for more inclusive pronouns like “they” or use language like “the candidate” or “the ideal applicant.”

Lastly, keep in mind that certain soft skills also have gendered connotations. Emotional words like “compassion,” “collaboration,” and “trust” can be seen as feminine and attract more female applicants than male or nonbinary candidates. Conversely, words like “confident,” “ambitious,” and “fearless” are often perceived as more masculine qualities.

Being aware of these connotations, your business can ensure its job descriptions avoid unconscious bias and gendered language in order to attract candidates of all genders. If you need help finding and replacing gendered words, try this free online Gender Decoder tool. To make sure you are balancing out any adjectives that may carry a gendered connotation, check out these lists of masculine– and feminine-coded words.

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Source: Lattice, mai 2022