Canva, the maker of online design and publishing tools, has analyzed the words used in job ads looking for jargon.
And shame on you Washington State, leading the way with abuse of complicated and confusing words and phrases. Leading the way there – “cloud first”. The most overused term overall – team player.
This backs up a study done a few years ago by Textio, which linked jargon as a negative impact to a company’s ability to hire in a timely manner with the best candidate.
Here’s your tidbit – synergy. It’s apparently a gateway jargon. Listings with synergy are more likely to contain other jargon terms than those that don’t.
Why do we care?
Words matter, and we’re an industry that is awful with jargon. It’s the impact on hiring I was particularly interested in. There’s some value in a shared cultural language… and then there is over doing it.
Language can also be a barrier on the diversity front too, driving away those that do not feel like they fit. That’s limiting your hiring too – and with the power dynamic shifted to the worker, every detail matters.
