5 Tips for Using Datapeople's Language Analytics for Job Posts
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Datapeople is your new platform to write better job descriptions. It will help you think through how candidates experience your job. Are you being as clear and inclusive as possible? Would someone who isn’t at your company understand it?
Our data-backed guidance (based on 30M+ jobs analyzed) will help you look at how the four main components of your job description impact candidates: Title, Skills, Content, and Language.
With just a few minutes spent optimizing your job in Datapeople, you’ll help create a more qualified and naturally representative candidate pool.
Keep these 5 tips in mind when you first jump into Datapeople's Language Analytics for job descriptions.
#1: Aim for 85+
A job score of 85+ in Datapeople means your job is optimized for the local marketplace. Aim for clarity and inclusivity, not perfection.
You may have guessed that the score you see in the top left corner of each of your jobs is out of 100. But it’s important to note that you don’t have to reach perfection, and an A+ grade is actually a job score of 85+. That’s when your job is optimized for the local marketplace. And it also means you have 15 points to disagree with the guidance you see in Datapeople.
Job scores are dynamic and will automatically update as you make changes to your job. The point is to be as clear and inclusive as possible. Use the rest of these tips to see your score climb quickly.
#2: Think like an SEO marketer
The job title you use needs to match candidate search terms. Datapeople will help you add or remove words to match the marketplace.
So much rests on getting your title technically correct. To do that, Datapeople will help you think like an SEO marketer.
Candidates show up to a blank search bar when they’re looking for a new job. Whether on Indeed, LinkedIn, or even your careers page, they enter a string of words and see a list of relevant jobs. Optimizing the title you use will ensure your job shows up on that list.
Datapeople is powered by data on how candidates search for jobs. In the platform, you will see how you can improve your title to match these searches.
Sometimes, it’s about adding a few more keywords. For example, clarifying that a Senior Engineer is a Senior Software Engineer. There are over 40 types of engineering roles -- and you probably don’t want to show up in a mechanical engineer search. Or clarifying that a New Accounts Executive is a New Accounts Sales Executive. Qualified candidates are searching for sales executive roles -- and you want to make sure your job is there.
Other times, it will be about eliminating title words that don’t make sense for the candidate marketplace. For instance, adding Senior to a non-senior role (i.e., a job only requiring 2+ years of experience) can really impact who applies. Most recruiting teams will argue that you create a more qualified candidate pool by using an overqualified title, but the opposite is actually true, according to the data. Qualified candidates tend to lose confidence that they’ll be able to compete. Instead of applying to your job, they’ll use their precious time to apply for other jobs where they perceive they have a better chance.
Pro tip: Changes you make to the title for external search don’t need to impact titles you use internally. You can use an SEO-ready title and add a line to the body of the description like “Internally, we call this role X.” In this way, you are still being very clear with candidates without missing them in search results.
Additional reading:
#3: Include the right content
Create consistency across your jobs by using the right formatting and content. Datapeople has this ready for you.
Your team likely has a standard template and approved job content like perks bullet points and an equality statement. Either your Marketing or Legal team (or both) likely signed off on these. And those sections should be consistent across all open roles, no matter the writer.
But when you’re moving quickly to open a new job, you may not even notice that you’ve forgotten to include these sections. No fear. Datapeople lets you know when it doesn’t detect perks or a diversity and inclusion statement on your job. Even better, your Datapeople Admin may have already included this content in a locked section of a template!
You may also see guidance about adding a ‘reporting to’ line. You can do that easily by starting a sentence with “Reporting to the [enter manager title here], you will…” Candidates love to understand where they’ll fit into an org!
Pro tip: Is your job formatting looking funky? Click on Job > Apply Template to start fresh using your team’s standard job format filled with approved content.
Additional reading:
#4: Eliminate exclusionary language
The language you use impacts candidates. Datapeople will help you use an inclusive, approachable tone that makes all candidates feel welcome to apply.
Remember that candidates are looking at your job from the outside in, and they’re typically reading about it on a third-party job search site. That means they aren’t seeing how multifaceted your company culture may look on your careers page. So how you sound on this one document sets the tone for candidates.
Your goal is to be approachable and inclusive. Removing corporate jargon and using lots of ‘you’ and ‘us’ language (i.e., ‘You will’ instead of ‘The ideal candidate will’) has a big impact on how candidates perceive your culture. Datapeople will offer replacement words you can add with one click.
Maybe you’ve never thought of it this way before, but the words you use to describe ideal candidates also communicate your company culture. This can be especially tricky, and sometimes even unintuitive.
There are words and phrases in the English language that have been coded over centuries to describe certain types of people. If you say you’re looking for a sales rep who is ‘aggressive’ and ‘able to work independently with little supervision,’ could you make candidates from historically underrepresented groups think twice about applying? Absolutely. And it’s not because they don’t think of themselves as independent or aggressive when they need to be, just like anyone else. Rather, they’re reading into your team culture and how they might fit in -- Is this a supportive, collaborative team? Maybe not from the way this sounds...
Your words won’t impact all members of underrepresented groups the same (i.e., not all female candidates will react negatively), but that’s not entirely the point. Looking at it from the other angle, our data shows that historically represented groups still apply at the same level whether these sentiments appear. So when you use welcoming language, you’re literally welcoming every and all candidates to apply.
This leads us to a question: Where do I start when it comes to updating language in Datapeople? Typically, your requirements (skills) section is going to be one of the most problematic areas with lots of blue (impacts quality) and red (impacts diversity) highlights. It can be especially long and full of ‘fluff’ requirements (i.e., soft skills that don’t help candidates self-select). Be sure to focus on which criteria you’re using so that candidates do the initial sorting for you.
Pro tip: What do all these highlight colors mean? Here’s an easy reference key for the future:
- Gray - LANGUAGE MECHANICS: Grammar and spelling mistakes
- Green - KUDOS: Something that does well with candidates (keep it up!)
- Blue - IMPROVE CONTENT: Wordy/impersonal language and corporate-speak/jargon that you can easily update
- Red - REMOVE CONTENT: Critical errors and soft skills that are known to impact the quality and diversity of candidate pools (delete, delete!)
- Yellow - INCLUSION: Biased language that is important to review critically (make sure you’re not inadvertently telling a group of candidates that they’re not welcome to apply!)
Additional reading:
- Bias Guidance for Inclusive Job Descriptions
- Soft Skills Aren't Necessary in Job Descriptions
- Does Overqualifying a Job Create a Confidence Gap?
#5: Invite others to collaborate
Datapeople is a place to collaborate with your team. Take advantage of all the features!
Lastly but perhaps most importantly, you’re not alone! Datapeople is a collaborative platform. You have lots of features to take advantage of, including:
Share - You can send a collaborator a ‘magic link’ to your job. Your collaborator doesn’t need to sign up or log into Datapeople. They’re immediately brought to your job editor screen, and they see all the same guidance that you do.
Last Edit - See the latest edits you or your collaborator make by hitting the Last Edit button. You can see your job’s score history and even click on a previous version to revert back.
Similar Jobs - Unsure of what to say? Click on the Similar Jobs button and see some examples of similar jobs, some in your local marketplace. Click through to see how others write about similar roles. These aren’t necessarily Datapeople customers or optimized job descriptions, but it gives you a good idea of what is out there for candidates.
Sync - Importantly, when you and your team are done optimizing your job, it’s just a few more clicks to get the job into your ATS.
Now that you’ve had a crash course on Datapeople's Language Analytics for job posts, it’s time to get started!
You’ll learn so much more along the way, so don’t hesitate to reach out to the Datapeople team through the chatbot if you get stuck anywhere. We’re happy to answer any questions you have, big or small!
Happy Editing!