Gendered wording

There are more than 20,000 job advertisements available in different job portals in Estonia. Company that wants to stick out with its recruitment advertisement must think does it speak with potential candidates, does it has a story?

One week I noticed three G4S recruitment ads where they were looking for employees to customer sites - all of them had attractive visuals with photo materials.

First one was looking for security staff to aviation customer; in its visual there were company car and Tallinn Airport on the back of the advertisement, showing to candidates where they are expected to work.

Second one was looking for security guards for Prisma Peremarket (local retail chain), where company has used photos from customer site and added of photo of serious security person.

With third advertisement they were looking for security personnel to Solaris Center (Estonian life style center). The message of the advertisement was again supported with photo material about customer site, with added photo of male and female security guard in uniform.

Most people probably associate word ‘security guard’ with so called male job.  In Estonia the job was formerly called not ‘security guard’ but ‘security man’ (in Estonian turvamees). And even if most of us are now used to see female security guards on their job posts in different retail stores, office buildings and etc, the first thing that comes to our mind, when we think about security person is - a man! It is really time consuming to break stereotypical thinking and if a company wants to hire people from opposite sex to stereotypical position they must think how to deliver their message so that it would reach target audience. One of the possibilities is to support your message with photo, as G4S has done here. Woman who sees that add and sees a female security guard starts to think ‘if other women can do it, so can I’. Second possibility is to write to job ad that the job is suitable for men and women. Third possibility is to use gender related wording.

Just recently I found information about one research that was carried out in USA in 2011 by D. Gaucheri, J. Frieseni and A.C. Kay. This research was studying usage of gendered wording in job advertisements and in job descriptions, and its influences to job seekers.

This research revealed that women found male-dominated jobs to be less appealing, compared with the same types of jobs advertised with feminine wording. Moreover, to use masculine wording in male-dominated jobs makes the job unappealing for women because conveys that they may not belong in that job.

With the research they also studied 493 typical female- and male – dominated job advertisement and prepared a list of masculine and feminine words. According to this masculine words are: active, confident, decisive, dominant, impulsive, objective, outspoken, etc. Feminine words are: gentle, honest, kind, polite, warm, loyal, interpersonal etc.

Takeaways:

-          Use illustrative photo material in your job posts. It gives job seekers better overview of the vacant position; use pictures where employees are dressed in company’s uniform, employees filling  various job duties, photos showing different areas of the company’s core business, etc.

-          Be different from others! Instead of using layouts of job portals, try to prepare (or use agency help) your job advertisement yourself by using custom-made visuals for different vacant occupations that you offer.

-          Looking for candidates from opposite sex to stereotypical jobs, you can use supporting picture material, gendered wording or write to the job ad that the job is suitable both man and women.

Video scribing

When company looks for accountant or secretary or someone else for commonly know occupation then usually you know whom they mean. But do you know who PLAYFUL ARTIST is (in Estonian mänguline kunstnik)?

Just recently a company called HR Factory was looking for someone to mentioned occupation to OÜ Scribicon. To illustrate the job tasks of vacant position recruiting company had added a picture to the advertisement where someone has just finished story telling by video scribing.

Video scribing means that story is told by drawing picture(s) – the story could be company’s strategy, field of operations, job advertisement, etc. This means that the job of the playful artist is to help companies to tell their stories by drawing cartoons. 

Since video scribing is relatively new topic then HR Factory has also included company’s portfolio to the job advertisement – which additionally of recruitment ad also helps to advertise new area and its usage.

One of the key recruitment areas in 2014 would be video recruitment. According to Statistics of Estonia the computer and internet usage among Estonian labor force (ages 16-74) is about 80%. Considering the fact that year by year this number is raising then companies should take this into consideration when they plan their recruitment strategies. Companies who want to stand out with their job advertisements should consider using video scribing in their ads.

Anyways, I’m happy to see that such new method has arrived to Estonia. I do hope that recruiters also see this as an opportunity to create attractive job advertisement and that in close future we can see some video scribed job advertisement in here.

Takeaways:

- Consider using visual effects when recruiting candidates to not so well-known positions.

- Additionally to you job advertisements in print media, publish them also in Internet; there you can use different innovative recruitment methods such as video scribing, recruitment movies, etc. Do not underestimate older generation usage of computer and internet – they also use it when they are looking for a job.

- Do not be afraid to use innovative recruitments solutions. International survey* that was carried out in 2013 brought out important findings: firstly, 60% of employees in survey agreed with the statement that they expect companies to be demonstrating innovation in the ways they recruit talent. Secondly, 55% agreed with statement that even if they are happy in their current role, they would consider leaving it if were approached in an innovative way.

*Futurestep (global industry leader in high-impact recruitment solutions) conducted a survey in eight countries, exploring the impact of innovation in recruitment and talent management. The study involved 4,000 employees and 800 professionals.

Typography

Try following: find some official document or letter that you have in your computer (could be contract, e-mail, etc.). Probably you wrote it by using Times New Roman or Arial font, i.e. font types that are usually used for such official letters. Now mark the whole text with Ctrl-A and change the font style to Bradley Hand ITC or Forte. You can also try to change the color (use whatever color you’d like except dark colors) and the size (anything bigger than 12 pts is fine) of the text. How does it feel? Does it still feel like an official document?

With the above-stated example I wanted to show you that font style, size and color create some certain associations in readers. This means that preparing a job advertisement you must consider not only pictures and contents but also typography that you are using so that it could support the message that you want to deliver to your readers.

Let us now take a look now to Kuursaal’s (well-known tavern in Pärnu) job advertisement where they are looking for waiter/sales pro. In addition to quite witty approach to recruitment (stating that the person is ‘wanted’ not that we are hiring, recruiting, etc.), their job advertisement looks attractive, stylish and rises some associations in readers.

Font style: in this ad Kuursaal has used variety of western-type font styles (for example Book Type) that helps the readers to capture the nature of the tavern. When you take a look to their homepage you can see that the selection of this font style is not random. Background, which looks like on an old authentic paper, shows that they have been thinking the whole thing thru. So all in all, the message and stylistics, font style, layout – they all support each other and make the job advertisement whole.

Readability of the ad: to make the ad easier to read and to stress whom they are looking, Kuursaal has used capital letters.

But be careful, when using capital letters. Generally it is not recommended to use them in text that is longer than one line. This is because that we are used to read (small)letters and we are able to read them faster and understand them better. In addition, the contours of the letter generate certain visual perception in the brain, so that we actually do not need to read all letters one by one, since we already know what word it is. But allegedly we do not have same perception in reading capital letters. To illustrate that claim I looked up one post that just recently circulated in Facebook:

“I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.”

What is particularly heartwarming in that job advertisement is the promise that company will give a personal feedback to all candidates. In fact, this is exactly the kind of statement that creates a positive image of the company.

Takeaways:

- Use the same typographical elements in your job advertisement that you have used in your website or in other advertisements that you use for your products or service

- To emphasize your message you can use either CAPS or bold. But beware not to overuse them.

- Add to your job ad the information whether and when candidates get feedback. If you feel that you cannot give feedback to all candidates then point that also out, then people do not mind so much if they don’t get it. If you are confident that you can contact all candidates then make sure that you fulfill your promise.