The words ‘leadership’, ‘competitive’ or ‘aggressive’ in a job description or the careers section of a company’s website may seem benign, but these traditionally masculine words can deter women from applying for jobs. This exacerbates gender disparities in sectors which already struggle to attract women, such as finance.

To discover the impact that gendered language has on the finance sector, Relative Insight partnered with Comparative Linguistics to research how the language used by financial institutions can dramatically affect the perception of future employees and hamper efforts to improve gender balance in the industry.

In this session, Comparative Linguistics founder Tom Head and Alex Kibblewhite, senior account director at Relative Insight, will explain what this research encompassed and the results it provided.

The pair will highlight the differences in the language used by traditional financial institutions, female-centric finance organisations and challenger firms whose aim is to shake up the industry. They’ll also explain how they found fascinating variations in how companies, employees and jobseekers talk by analysing company websites, financial forums, employee reviews and social data.

Attend this talk to learn how gendered language can impact people’s impression of different industries.

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