We spend a lot of time talking about words on this blog, heck we even called it Word Nerd. And that’s because we know words are important for any type of communication, especially job posts. But words aren’t the only thing a person sees when they encounter your job post. With only a few seconds to woo them, there are structural and stylistic aspects of a post that impact the attractiveness of the opportunity.
Textio’s predictive engine has ingested almost 300 million job posts and their outcomes, and is adding more than 10 million job posts every month. With all these new job posts the engine is able to identify patterns in how we write, that are as effective as the the words we write.
The Textio editor interface is known for its colorful highlights, but there are hidden depths to the right side of that window, which we call the “factor pane.” The factor pane is organized with a number of ways you can improve your job listing and how many points you will earn for these improvements. Improvements listed in the factor pane are based on trends Textio has identified in your job market today. This isn’t a checklist. It is guidance aggregated specifically for your job type and location.
Insights from the factor pane
You can learn a lot by clicking into the factors listed on the factor pane. Factors that Textio believes you need to address are ranked, color-coded and listed in order of effect on your Textio score.
I always suggest starting with issues at the top of your list. When you click into a factor, Textio will expose a wealth of additional information that you can use to change your approach. You’ll see the exact number of points that you will earn by addressing the factor, a graph depicting both your status and the ideal range, and tips on how to make the suggested improvement.
No more guess-work about which changes will have the biggest impact. No need to make assumptions about your approach. No need to spend time prioritizing what you will and won’t have time to fix before you hand your listing off for review. Textio does it all for you.
Your guidance is constantly updating
Textio will always provide you with enough guidance to create a strong job listing for any market. Let’s say you create a job listing that frequently refers to your ideal applicant as “the candidate”.
Although there is nothing wrong with using the word “candidate” alone, Textio recognizes that, in your market today, job listings which speak to applicants directly, using words like “you”, perform better in a statistically significant way. You would see “Uses candidate language”, “Needs more ‘you’ statements,” or even “Uses repetitive wording” as issues that rank higher than others in the factor pane.
Another item that might show up in your factor pane is the amount of bulleted content. One of the biggest factors of visual layout is bulleted content. On the whole, Textio’s predictive engine currently shows that the best listings contain about one-third bulleted content. If you have too many bullets, you’ll tend to turn off women, too few and you’ll turn off men.
As you work to achieve a high score by following Textio’s guidance, your list of factors will recalibrate. Issues that are fully addressed will be replaced. Issues that are partially addressed will be re-ranked, either gaining or losing importance as you make changes. In fact, your ranked list of issues to address will appear until you have reached a score of 100. Again, this means that you will always have enough guidance to reach a high Textio score.