Secret language of your job posts

In December we published a story on how the language found in your job posts reveals your true company culture. Under the title “1000 different people, the same words,” Textio used its data to show how every company has distinctive language patterns that emerge across thousands of job listings, and those words and phrases reflects what they value as an organization.

We received a chorus of responses to the blog, sparking conversations across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and more. It quickly became our most popular blog ever, and it was clear we had struck a chord. Here are a few of the themes that came through from the online conversations.

Acclaimed author and Wharton professor Adam Grant, along with many others, noted how important this data is to revealing corporate values:

To find out what companies value, look at the unique phrases that stand out in their job postings.@KieranSnyder: https://t.co/ssEY0N4hbv pic.twitter.com/VRETa6pUu7

— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) December 15, 2017

Quite curious: usage of text analysis for corporate culture analysis. Limited, but truer than all cliché-ridden mission statements. "1000 different people, the same words – Textio Word Nerd" https://t.co/ejPKMXXlqP

— Celestino Güemes (@tguemes) December 17, 2017

Confused when a company focuses on both work-life balance and work hard-play hard? Here is a great article on what workplace culture words mean!https://t.co/4clOM5PUYF#work #culture pic.twitter.com/sdi5rWa3H4

— Susan Gandhi Schultz (@SusanGSchultz) December 27, 2017

Current and former employees of companies mentioned in the blog post often said that these words and phrases reflected their own experiences:

Given my knowledge on a lot of these companies, this holds true for culture.

https://t.co/M1oyMZoKPP

— Joe (@Pyr0joe) December 14, 2017

Several people commented on how this language might increase—or decrease—their desire to work at a given company:

You can tell a lot about a company from the words they use. Unsurprisingly, @SlackHQ sounds like the most supportive workplace of those surveyed. https://t.co/twt09BKRxm

— 𝙳𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚍 𝚂. 𝙱𝚒𝚕𝚕 (@dsb) December 16, 2017

Plenty of other readers wanted to know how their company would fare if their job posts were put to the test:

When thousands of people in your company use the same language in their job posts, that's not a mistake. It's your culture.https://t.co/SKAHg8FxUk

— Kieran Snyder (@KieranSnyder) December 13, 2017

Let’s keep pushing this conversation forward! Next month, on February 5th, we’ll be hosting a webinar featuring Textio CEO (and linguist) Kieran Snyder, so you can learn more about how the hidden language of your job posts reflects your true company culture and impacts your hiring.