Appcast Unveils "Impact of Gendered Wording on Candidate Attraction" Report, Empowering Hiring Organizations to Improve Recruitment Strategies and Attract Top Talent

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• USA - English

LEBANON, N.H., Jan. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Appcast, a global leader in programmatic recruitment advertising technology and services, today announced the findings of its "Impact on Gendered Wording on Candidate Attraction" report. With the aim to provide hiring organizations insight into how job ad wording choices impact recruitment advertising outcomes, the report finds that job ads with gender-neutral language overwhelmingly perform best, enabling organizations to reduce the cost per application (CPA) while increasing apply rates (AR) and the number of applications per job.         

As organizations compete for top talent this year, understanding how to write a compelling job description that attracts qualified candidates is vital. The Appcast report uses gendered wording originally identified within a Duke University and University of Waterloo academic study to evaluate job ad performance. According to the academic study, the most commonly used male-coded words are ambitious, confident, decision, logic(al) and superior, while compassion, emotion(al), interpersonal, sensitive and warm are the most commonly used female-coded words.

The Words Used in Job Ads Matter

According to the Appcast report, job ads with gender-neutral language (i.e., language without male- and female-coded words) resulted in:

• 41% lower CPA compared to ads with both male- and female-coded words
• 29% more applications per job compared to ads with both male- and-female coded words
• 24% better apply rate compared to ads with both male- and female-coded words
• 44% more applications per job compared to ads with female-coded words
• 20% better apply rate compared to job ads with male-coded words

Further, while gender-neutral ads perform the best, the report found that only 38% of job ads use gender-neutral language.

Impact of Gendered Wording on Recruitment Outcomes Varies by Job Function

The Appcast report examined 22 different job functions – from construction, technology, transportation and warehousing to retail, healthcare, customer service and education – to explore how gender-coded words impact job advertising results for predominantly male, predominantly female and gender-balanced job functions. The report used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to provide gender context for job functions.

Top-level Findings:

Predominantly Male Job Functions (job functions with at least 60% male workers)

• Gender-neutral language receives 145% more applications per job at a 16% lower CPA than job ads with both female- and male-coded words.

Predominantly Female Job Functions (job function with at least 60% female workers)

• Job ads with gender-neutral ads have the lowest CPA, but also the least number of applications per job.
• Job ads with female- coded words get 62% more applicants than gender-neutral job ads.

Gender-Balanced Job Functions (job functions with between 40-60% female/male workers)

• Compared to job ads with gender-neutral language, job ads with female-coded words get 46% fewer candidates at a 16% higher CPA, and job ads with male-coded words get 25% fewer applications per job at a 49% higher CPA.

Job Function-Specific Findings:

The report provides insight and specific recommendations for each of the 22 different job functions, including the percent of workers that are male vs. female, percent of job ads that have male-, female- or gendered-coded words, how those ads perform, most commonly used gender-coded words and expert tips to boost advertising outcomes.

While in aggregate, gender-neutral job ads have the best outcomes, the report found some nuances. For example, in technology, which is considered a predominantly male job function as 72% of the workers are men according to the BLS, Appcast found:

• Job ads that include female-coded words have the lowest CPA (20% lower than job ads with male-coded words) and the highest apply rate.
• Job ads with both female- and male-coded words get 44% more applications than job ads with only male-coded words and 50% more applications than gender-neutral ads without male- or female-coded words.
• Most commonly used male-coded words: confident/confidence, decision, logic/logical
• Most commonly used female-coded words: compassionate, interpersonal, sensitive
• Expert Tip: Add female-coded words to your job ads to improve recruitment outcomes; job ads with both female- and male-coded job ads perform best.

"Recognizing how word choice in job advertising impacts results and adjusting ads accordingly are crucial to attaining recruitment objectives," said Heather Salerno, senior vice president of marketing at Appcast. "Our goal with this report is to provide hiring organizations with a guide that they can continuously turn to and use as a resource to achieve their specific recruitment advertising objectives."

To download the "Impact of Gendered Wording on Candidate Attraction" report, visit https://info.appcast.io/whitepaper/appcast-gender-report-website.

Methodology
The "Impact of Gendered Wording on Candidate Attraction" report was developed by Appcast with a focus on how gendered wording impacts cost per application (CPA), apply rate (AR) and the average number of applications per job. Appcast reviewed 473,742 jobs advertised between August 1, 2020 and August 31, 2020. The Appcast report uses the gendered wording originally identified within a University of Waterloo and Duke University academic study, job ads from Appcast's extensive jobs database, as well as data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other sources to provide gender context for the 22 different job functions examined in the report.

About Appcast
Appcast is the global leader in programmatic recruitment advertising technology and services. With advanced technology, unmatched market data and a team of the industry's best recruitment marketers, Appcast's technology and services manage over half a billion dollars in job advertising annually on behalf of more than 1,500 clients. Headquartered in Lebanon, N.H. with offices in Boston, Mass., New Brunswick, Canada and Minsk, Belarus, Appcast is a subsidiary of StepStone, one of the world's largest job classified businesses, and a proud member of the Axel Springer SE family. To learn more, visit https://www.appcast.io/ and follow on Twitter @appcast_io.

Media Contact

Amanda Corey, Gabriel Marketing Group (for Appcast), 202-494-0098, [email protected]

SOURCE Appcast