With approximately 50 percent of the world’s workforce being female, the last thing that a company wants to do is create some recruitment ads in the Bay area that are filled with gender bias and discourage females from applying. This will end up creating a team of individuals who are largely male and likely have similar mindsets. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it does limit the amount of worldviews that can be brought to the table in order to create a well-rounded product or service.
However, it is not just females that are at risk of being alienated due to gender bias. It can also happen for males as well in certain situations. For example, various studies have found that using words such as nurture or community can cause males to overlook certain job advertisements. Luckily, removing any signs of gender bias is incredibly easy when hiring recruitment advertising firms in the Bay Area, who will promptly follow these helpful tips.
Have Employees of the Opposite Gender Read Advertisements Beforehand
Job advertisements should never be something that are just written and posted within a matter of a couple of hours. This will result in a haphazard ad being thrown together and inevitably becoming overlooked by a large majority of talented prospects. That is why recruitment advertising agencies in the Bay Area spend such a significant portion of time working on a single group of job advertisements. Putting in the proper amount of effort is instantly reflected in the quality of ad that comes as a result, which also affects the quality of the prospects that are applying in response to the ad.
During the process of the various revisions that are done on the job ad, employers should have someone who is a member of the sex that they are trying to target, if there is one, look it over before it becomes posted online. If not, then they should give it to both a male employee and a female employee in order to ensure that neither of them notices anything that would be inherently off-putting to other members of their gender.
Unfortunately, many industries tend to have a gender bias towards one area or another. For example, the healthcare industry is largely populated by females, whereas the tech industry is a largely male area. So in both of these cases, businesses that belong to either of these industries may want to try and hire individuals from the opposite gender in order to round out their workforce.
In that case, it would likely benefit a healthcare company to have a male employee read over the job ad before it gets posted and for a tech company to have a female employee look it over beforehand. They should be able to help identify any glaring issues that the employees of the other gender may not have noticed.
Use Pronouns Carefully
One of the simplest mistakes that a business can make when crafting a job advertisement is the inclusion of specific pronouns. When a job posting includes the word she or he, it immediately makes it clear what gender it is targeting. Although this might not be brutally clear to the applicants who are reading the advertisements, it likely plays a big role on a subconscious level.
Rather than taking this chance, companies should instead resort to using more gender-neutral pronouns. Some of the best examples include saying “you” or at the very least including the word “s/he” in order to make it clear that members of both genders are welcome to apply for the position.
Avoid Descriptions That Use Biased Language
This is by far one of the biggest problem areas when it comes to gender biased job ads. When companies are trying to describe the role of their position, they often put a lot of thought into how to describe the various responsibilities of the job, but unfortunately they are thinking about the wrong elements of these descriptions.
One of the biggest problems that businesses look to solve with their advertisements is the struggle of making the job seem more interesting than the other similar jobs being offered online. In order to solve this issue, they often tend to describe the various tasks in unusual ways. This can often end up with the advertisement including terminology such as strong, nurture, ninja, and other similar examples.
Unfortunately, all of these descriptors, while unique and eye-catching, are also slightly gender biased. For example, when using the terms strong and ninja, they convey a distinctly male emotion. On the other hand, when including the word nurture, as previously mentioned, it comes off as being aimed specifically towards females.
A much better option is for companies to replace this terminology with terms that are generally regarded as being more gender-neutral. A few great words to use that are not biased towards one gender or another include terms like “exceptional” in place of “strong” and “assist” in place of “nurture”. If a job advertisement is filled with descriptors like these, then it should have no issue appealing to both males and females an equal amount.
Refine Requirements
Most companies do not realize it, but the requirements that they list for their position has a direct effect on whether or not the advertisement comes off as being gender biased. When a position is described as requiring more than five or six points, it often has a negative impact towards female applicants.
Studies have shown that if females do not meet every single requirement listed, then they are far less likely to apply for the position at all. That is why companies should reclassify some of the less significant requirements as bonuses or preferences. They should keep the requirements list short and only include things that are absolutely necessary in order to fulfill the role of the position. This will help to ensure that they get as many female applicants to respond to the job advertisement as possible.
