Since 1973, job advertisements are no longer allowed to advertise specifically for men or women, or use pronouns such as he or she. However, gender preferences can still be conveyed unintentionally by the language used in your descriptions.

Our Managing Director, Ricky Martin, recently led a fascinating discussion on unconscious bias, where he said that our choice of words could be unintentionally attracting only one gender.

Speaking in the WISE webinar: Tackling Unconscious Bias in the Recruitment Process, he said:

“If we look at the unconscious perspective, there are more masculine-determined words. So, words like ‘confident’, and words like ‘driven’ are very masculine, whether we realise that or not from an unconscious perspective.

“What you’ll find statistically is that more males are likely to apply for a role with words like that in there.

“Some businesses will use technology to screen for certain words and highlight them, but there are other words like ‘interpersonal’, or ‘honest’, which are more feminine-focused."