Job Board Description Best Practices – Eliminate Unnecessary Requirements

One of the most common mistakes employers make when writing job ad descriptions is to list a litany of requirements that they want from a potential employee. This can severely limit the number of applicants that you get.

Fact: With most positions, the quality of the employee is far more important than the specific knowledge or experience they have. Skills, languages, and techniques can all be learned on the job as long as the person has the capacity to do so.

Fact: On average, women are much more likely to apply to a position only if they meet 100% of the listed requirements. By contrast men are likely to apply to the same job even if they only meet 60% of the requirements.

Too many prerequisites will severely limit your audience, and skew it towards an innate gender bias. Instead focus on finding candidates that have the ability to grow into the position and acquire the skills they need over time.

Bad: We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer with 5 years experience to help build out our responsive web interfaces.
Good: Join an amazing team and forge the next generation of responsive web interfaces.

*Women are more likely to opt out of applying for a position if they do not meet 100% of the requirements, while male counterparts tend to apply for jobs where they meet only 60% of the requirements. *

Job Board Description Best Practices

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