When you are writing a job post, you instantly become an ad copywriter. And ad copywriters know that every single word counts.
That’s because language is emotional: the word “secret” can trigger curiosity, while “cheery” might evoke happiness. Good writing can cause an emotional reaction in your reader, and few things are as emotional as deciding whether to take a new job.
However, the same words can trigger different reactions in different cultures, even among cultures that use the same language. At Textio, we see this frequently in our data. Take the word “intense,” for example: data from more than 50 million job posts shows that in some cities, “intense” is associated with either very fast time-to-fill, or very slow.
Portland, Oregon is the city where job posts containing the word “intense” perform the best, followed by Denver, Dallas, Seattle, and Boston.
Meanwhile, over in Cleveland the word “intense” is associated with roles that fill more slowly. Same is true for Miami, San Francisco, Chicago, and Honolulu.
