Find what is putting candidates off your job description

Every posting starts at 100 and loses points for each problem found:

• Salary: no pay figure −20; one figure without a range −6. A figure counts as pay when it stands next to a word such as salary, compensation or “per hour”, and is not a budget, bonus or revenue number.
• Length: under 150 words −15; 150 to 299 −5; 901 to 1,300 −8; over 1,300 −12.
• Must-haves: bullet points under a requirements or qualifications heading. More than 8 costs 8 points, more than 12 costs 14; no requirements at all −5.
• Exclusionary terms such as “ninja”, “digital native” or “native speaker”: −5 each, up to −15.
• Gender-coded wording: −6 when masculine-coded words outnumber feminine-coded ones by two or more.
• Buzzwords: −2 each, up to −10.
• Missing information: where the work happens −6, benefits −5, hiring steps −4.
• Readability: two or more sentences over 30 words −6; Flesch–Kincaid grade above 13 −4; a request for 8 or more years of experience −3.
• Point of view: “we / our” used six times or more, and over one and a half times as often as “you / your”, −3.

85 and above is labelled ready to post, 65 to 84 good with a few fixes, below 65 needs work.

The weights and thresholds are our own rules of thumb, not an industry standard. The gender-coded word list is a short one in the spirit of the research by Gaucher, Friesen and Kay (2011) on gendered wording in job adverts; readability uses the public Flesch formulas, with each bullet point counted as a sentence.