What the bias language checker looks for
Small wording choices decide who applies. An advert asking for a “young, energetic rockstar” tells an experienced applicant they are not wanted before they read the requirements; a candidate summary that says “he” tells a client the candidate’s gender in a supposedly blind shortlist. The checker scans for seven groups of wording:
- Gendered terms and pronouns: job titles with a gender in them (salesman, chairman, foreman), “guys”, and he/she pronouns in adverts and anonymised summaries.
- Age-related wording: “young”, “recent graduate”, “digital native”, “energetic”, “highly experienced”, explicit age ranges and caps on years of experience.
- Disability and health: “able-bodied”, “physically fit”, blanket driving requirements and everyday slang built on disability.
- Nationality, language and religion: “native English speaker”, “mother tongue”, nationality-only restrictions and appearance rules such as “clean-shaven”.
- Masculine-coded wording: agentic, competition-themed words such as aggressive, dominant, fearless and decisive.
- Vague or exclusionary culture wording: “culture fit”, “work hard, play hard”, “rockstar” and “ninja”.
- Feminine-coded wording, shown for balance only.
The research behind the categories
The gender categories follow Gaucher, Friesen and Kay’s 2011 studies of job advertisements. They found that adverts in male-dominated fields used more masculine-coded wording, and that identical adverts written with more masculine-coded words were rated as less appealing by women, who also expected to belong less, while their sense of their own ability to do the job did not change. Feminine-coded wording did not have a comparable effect on men in those studies, which is why this tool shows it for balance rather than as a problem.
The age categories follow Burn, Button, Munguia Corella and Neumark’s 2022 study, which linked age-stereotyped language in real job ads, about health, personality and skills, to lower callback rates for older applicants in a field experiment. Regulators give concrete examples too: the US EEOC notes that an advert seeking “recent college graduates” may discourage people over 40, and Acas in the UK warns that “recent graduate” and “highly experienced” can discriminate by age unless the requirement can be justified.
The lists themselves are our own, written for recruitment copy and kept short so every flag comes with a usable alternative. They are not a reproduction of any published word list.
How to use the flags
Context decides. “Must hold a full driving licence” is reasonable for a field engineer who drives between sites and questionable for an office role. “Physically fit” might describe a real lifting task, in which case name the task and the weight and say that reasonable adjustments are available. For each flag ask two questions: does this word describe the work, and could I explain it to a candidate who was put off by it? If not, use one of the alternatives.
Practical rules for neutral job adverts
- Describe outcomes and tasks rather than personalities: “closes enterprise deals worth £50k+” instead of “aggressive closer”.
- Ask for skills and evidence, not years or generations: “confident with spreadsheets and CRM tools” instead of “digital native”.
- Use “you” for the reader and “they” when describing the person you will hire.
- State the right to work required rather than a nationality, and the language level required rather than “native speaker”.
- Give real hours and flexibility instead of “always on” or “whatever it takes”.
Candidate summaries and blind shortlists
Recruiter-written summaries leak more than CVs do. Pronouns, “young and hungry”, “mature” or “native speaker” all reveal protected characteristics that an anonymised CV was meant to hide. Switch the checker to candidate summary mode before you paste a profile into a submission. Pair it with the CV anonymiser for names, contact details and dates of birth.
Limits
The checker matches words and short phrases; it does not understand tone, sarcasm or a requirement buried in a long sentence. It covers English only. It is not legal advice, and an advert with no flags can still discourage applicants through its requirements, salary, images or the channels where it appears.
Keep submissions on the evidence
CVPitch builds client submissions from the candidate’s own CV rather than a recruiter’s impression: every extracted fact sits beside its source passage, nothing is embellished, and you choose which personal details each client sees. Compare plans or start free.