Recruiters – are you Towards or Away?
Recruiters (like everyone else) tend to write to match their own psychological preference.
But people are different. It’s part of the joy of being human. Some people are more motivated to move towards a goal. Others are more motivated to move away from a problem. As a recruiter, you want to motivate the right people to apply to your job ads and outreach messages.
Obviously, it’s more complicated than that. People can be doubly towards, doubly away, or towards:away, or away:towards, and it changes in different contexts.
In the work context, 40% are mainly toward, 20% are equally toward and away, 40% are mainly away. (Source: Rodger Bailey)
Towards language
It’s a stereotype, but recruiters tend to be quite ‘towards’ motivated. It’s a goal-orientated type of job and attracts that type of person.
As such, it means you’re likely to write using ‘towards’ language. Words such as: have, gain, achieve, get, obtain, include, benefits, advantages, here’s what you would accomplish…
But not every job is like that.
Away language
If the job you’re writing about includes problem-solving (for example), you need to attract applicants who are primarily ‘away’. That means using ‘away’ language such as: solve, prevent, avoid, fix, won’t have to, get rid of, it’s not perfect, let’s find out what’s wrong, there’ll be no problems…
(Source: ‘Words that change minds‘ by Shelle Rose Charvet)
Neuroscience backs this up
• The behavioural activation system (BAS), corresponds to motivation to approach goal-oriented outcomes = towards
• The behavioural inhibition system (BIS), corresponds to motivation to avoid aversive outcomes = away from
Want to know whether you’re more ‘towards’ or ‘away’?
Here’s a 24-question self-report test so you can see where you fit on the BIS/BAS Scale.
You can make a donkey move by tempting it with a carrot or beating it with a stick. The outcome is the same. The method is different.
If you would like more thoughts and musings on recruitment, you might want to download Mitch’s free book “On Recruitment”.
