‘Masculine’ job adverts deter women from applying for them, according to new research, as less than half of women have chosen to apply for vacancies which use male-coded language.
Analysis of more than 7,500 job adverts, conducted by the hiring platform Applied, ran the wording of each advert through a gender score calculator – a tool which detects feminine-coded language (such as together, collaborate, responsibility and share) and masculine words (such as individual, challenging and driven) – to score the text accordingly.
The report found that adverts using strong masculine language saw the number of female candidates applying for the role drop by up to 10 per cent), with less than half (44 per cent) applying for those positions.
