Optimising Job Ads: The Transformative Power of Language

Have you ever wondered why some job postings attract plenty of qualified applicants while others receive far less attention?

You might say it’s due to the nature of the role or the employer’s reputation. Yet even highly comparable jobs from equally well-known companies often perform very differently—and the reasons aren’t obvious at first glance.

Analysing the Cause Is Tricky

A real comparison would require a large job board where many nearly identical ads compete for candidates at the same time. One major, often overlooked factor—something an individual recruiter can’t easily analyse—is the wording and tone used in the job ad itself.

Words create a connection. To bring companies and candidates together, the advert must speak to applicants in their preferred linguistic world.

But measuring the impact of language would mean running A/B tests: you’d need at least one extra advert and hope both versions reach comparable audiences. Hardly anyone does this. Writers rely on what hiring managers and HR deem important—and on their own intuition about which phrases will resonate. In the end, the wording often reflects the author’s own motivations more than the candidate’s—and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Making Ads Truly Appealing

Let me share an insight that changed how I craft job ads. Throughout my career I wrote countless postings—skill-centric, detailed, technically polished. When an ad drew little interest, I rarely considered that my language might be the problem. I assumed the barrier lay elsewhere.

That mindset shifted recently, thanks to client conversations and AI-assisted analyses comparing similar roles at different companies.

Understanding What Candidates Really Want

Ideal candidates for a given role usually share common motivations and needs. They respond positively to certain words and styles—and negatively to others. Many recruiters sense this intuitively, but data make it clear.

Take two in-house SAP project-manager ads from different employers. One, written by a specialised recruitment agency, scored above 70 on the PAI scale; the other, produced by a generalist HR team, scored just 4 (out of 100). Daily contact with SAP specialists had given the agency an instinctive grasp of those candidates’ language, while the HR department was further removed.

The Secret of High PAI Matches

Some people—often niche recruiters—consistently produce copy that scores 60–70 on the PAI scale and resonates with candidates. Others keep experimenting yet achieve only mediocre matches. It’s similar to top salespeople: they “read” their customers better and close more deals because they understand them better.

But what exactly is PAI and how can you use it if you haven’t spent years immersed in that talent pool?

PAI Match by Psychological AI

Developed by Psychological.ai, the PAI score relies on a behavioural-psychology AI model trained on millions of datapoints. By analysing text, the AI can pinpoint an author’s motivational category. Aggregate enough authors and you get a reliable profile of a target group’s needs.

The model also knows which phrases appeal to each category—and which trigger rejection. I call this the group’s preferred linguistic world. Feed any draft into the system and it calculates how well the wording aligns with that world. High alignment makes a job ad more attractive to the intended audience; low alignment repels them.

Over the years Psychological.ai has refined this process and named the alignment metric PAI Match.

What This Means for Me (and You)

I’ve realised that many under-performing ads of mine listed too many skills and used wording that actually discouraged great candidates. It’s not just what we require—it’s how we communicate the offer.

With Psychological.ai’s tool you can now improve that communication layer objectively rather than guessing.

SEO Concerns: Does Language Optimisation Hurt Visibility?

A common worry is that tweaking language for candidates will harm a job post’s SEO. In fact, it’s the opposite:

• Ads with a high PAI Match keep candidates on the page longer and push more of them into the application flow.
• Search engines—general ones like Google or specialist engines on sites such as StepStone and Indeed—interpret this positive behaviour as higher relevance, boosting ranking and visibility.

Reflection and Invitation

Have you noticed that some colleagues effortlessly connect with candidates because they get them? How has your own professional journey shaped your recruiting approach?

If you’d like to see how candidates perceive your job ads and how psychological AI can enhance your hiring process, let’s talk. This isn’t magic—or belief. It’s data-driven insight applied where it counts.

Ask ChatGPT

‍