We've all experienced it once. You got a bill from, let's say, your energy company that you don't quite recognize. So you think: I'll get in touch with the company. You navigate to the website, you log in, click on the customer service icon and you are presented with a chatbot: 'describe your problem in a few short sentences'. You write a short description with your question, but you always get the answer: “Sorry, I do not understand your question. Can you type it in a different way?” Well... no! Besides the bill, you are now also stuck with a feeling of frustration.

This is the exact opposite of what a chatbot is supposed to do. You want a chatbot to contribute to the candidate experience in a positive way. To quickly give the user an answer or quickly tell the applicant the status of their application. In this blog, we'll give you some tips for writing texts (conversational copywriting) for a chatbot to make your chatbot a definite hit and not a miss.

Tip 1: Give your chatbot a clear personality

A conversation with Annie is not as informative as a conversation with Lisa tends to be. And a chat with Harry is not nearly as funny as a chat with Melvin. This is exactly the same when talking to chatbots. Just like how your brand has a personality (archetype), the chatbot should also be an extension of the brand with a consistent brand voice.

Always keep this personality in mind when writing for the chatbot. You want it to have a recognizable tone-of-voice. The bot has to sound almost human. And you can only do that if you give it a personality. After all, the way you address a candidate can make all the difference between a successful job application or not.

Here you can find the definitions of all the twelve different brand archetypes, if you want a little refresher course.

Tip 2: Write in colloquial language

Unlike what you learned in school, you will have to completely abandon all official writing rules.

Starting sentences with And? Totally fine!

Using 'annoying' filler words like: uh, yes, actually, just? Definitely do it!

That just adds that extra touch of personality and human character.

How do you make sure you apply this correctly and say the right things? First speak your conversations out loud before you write them down. Have real conversations first, with colleagues for example, and put them on paper verbatim. Also, don't be afraid to make the occasional tongue-in-cheek comment, even if it seems off-topic. In real conversations, you also occasionally digress. No one goes through a conversation completely humorless. Or, at least, almost no one.

Tip 3: Don't hesitate to put words in the candidate's mouth

Whereas our psychologist might teach us not to fill in for someone else, I advise you to do the exact opposite for the chatbot. You want to know exactly what a user is going to say so you can anticipate it. When you think all possible scenarios through as far ahead as possible, you also have an appropriate answer ready for all possible questions.

One way to make sure you stay in control of a conversation is to ask lots of questions. This way you can steer the conversation. Using simple action buttons, you give the candidate control, but within the framework you set.

It can happen that a conversation does not go well. That the bot does not understand a question. Again, prepare appropriate and varied responses so you can get the conversation back on track. Does it still not work? Then you can always have a "real person" take over the conversation.

Tip 4: Get experts on chatbots and Conversational Copywriting to contribute ideas

We all think we know how to have a conversation. I mean, we do nothing else all day long. Right?

However, nothing could be further from the truth. At least, that's my (not so) humble opinion. After all, it pays to admit when something is not your field of expertise. That is also the reason why OTYS focuses on the core of recruitment software, and links with all kinds of expert partners for a complete package. We don't say Jack of all trades, but master of none for nothing.

We believe in the power of chatbots and therefore we link with various specialists in the field of chatbots. That's why we partner with companies such as Joboti and NIXZ. The most recent addition to our impressive list of partners: Dora from Happy Recruiter.

The recruitment robot Dora was developed by Happy Recruiter to connect with candidates as well as maintain contact with them. Create an almost instantaneous bond of trust with the use of an AI-driven chatbot.

And as a final tip: keep improving your bot

The last game is not fought at the facility. Stay critical. Let other people walk through the chatbot. Keep expanding and honing the bot's vocabulary.

Is there still a hitch? Does a conversation unexpectedly go less smoothly despite all efforts? Does the bot have to endure answers to which it has no answer? Learn your lesson and write better, smarter and wittier answers.

Don't have a chatbot yet, but are you interested in it? Please contact us and we will help you build the perfect recruitment solution for you. You can do this by sending us an email, filling in the contact form or by giving us a call.

At OTYS we are continuously optimizing the user experiences for our customers. For this we consider your feedback to be very important.

Based on your feedback, we have decided to change the Key User Training.

Why are we making changes?

Within OTYS we have had two roles for years: Users and Key Users. As a Key User you have more rights within OTYS and you can adjust the layout of the system, submit tickets and create new users.

We have always covered all options for the Key User in one afternoon training. As you may understand this is a lot of information for half a day. We also received this feedback from the participants of the training. For those who really want to get started with managing their own system, it was actually too much information in a short time. What we also noticed more and more is that a large part of the participants do not really want to make adjustments to the system themselves, but mainly want to become Key Users in order to be able to send out tickets and create accounts for new colleagues.

New roles and training types

With the feedback received in mind, we have adapted both the roles and the types of training. We now use three roles: User, Super User and Key User. We explain the differences to you.

User

As a User you have the usual rights for daily work. We give a User Training twice a month via Teams, in which we discuss the most used modules and functionalities. You can register for this training via our website.

Super User

The Super User has the rights of a User and additionally the rights to create tickets and new users. So for this you no longer need to become a Key User! A Super User does not have the rights to make changes to the layout, but can submit a change request via Support.

We expect this to be a godsend for many of our customers; this way you can ensure that the system remains up-to-date with your working method, without having to delve into settings and extra modules yourself.

Are you interested? You can request the rights via Support. The maximum number of Super Users depends on the size of the organization. There is no separate training for the Super User role; we have made informative videos that explain step by step how to create Tickets and Users within OTYS.

Key User

In our previous training courses, we made the assumption that someone who became a 'Key User' would be responsible for all changes to the interior. Statuses, workflows, mail templates, rights for your colleagues, everything was in one training. In practice, it turned out that participants often came to a training for one specific component, for example reports.

In our new training courses we have divided the topics. This way you can choose training courses that suit your interests and the role you have within your own organization. Because of this division we also take plenty of time per subject. This also gives you more time to deepen your knowledge and to practice on your own. These training courses are given on location in Houten and include a catered lunch.

View all courses

Like many other organizations, have you paid a lot of attention to diversity and inclusivity within the organization in recent years? Then you also know how difficult it is to achieve the goals you set for this. An often underexposed subject has to do with the content, the text, of all kinds of expressions. You can think of vacancy texts, but also internal newsletters and other media through which you want to reach both your own employees and future employees. The aim is to reach as many people as possible. And to above all, not exclude groups of people. Inclusive writing is the key word here.

But what exactly is inclusive writing, and where does it go wrong? And how can data help you with inclusive writing?

What is inclusive writing?

When we talk about diversity and inclusivity, vacancies play an urgent role. Especially if your goal is to hire a greater diversity of people. You can look for diversity in age, gender and cultural background, but for instance also in educational background and personality. A vacancy is written inclusively if it appeals to all these people at the same time, and if no one feels left out when they read the text.

You can do inclusive writing by taking into account the following general points:

  • People-oriented writing, also known as gender neutral writing. You do this by using he/she or the plural.
  • Address the reader with you or you.
  • Make sure your content doesn't discriminate by age. You do this of course by not mentioning ages in your text.
  • Avoid stereotyping in words and/or associations. You probably use them unconsciously more often than you think.
  • Think of “caring” for women and “powerful” for men.
  • Digital accessibility. Applying the WCAG's rules (more on this later) ensures that the text is accessible to everyone. So also for people with disabilities.

The 3 biggest language missed opportunities

Nevertheless, inclusive writing still regularly goes wrong. And that often happens unconsciously. When writing vacancy texts, you run the risk of only addressing a small group of potential candidates. This makes the chance of finding the perfect, diverse, candidate even smaller.

What goes wrong then if we want to write inclusively? 

1. The language level: make it easy and pleasant to read for a large group

The goal of inclusive writing is that everyone can find and understand your vacancy. Various studies by Textmetrics within 300 Dutch companies have shown that many vacancy texts are written too difficult. Of course, highly educated people can understand more complex texts. But that doesn't mean they want to read it. If you pay attention to writing in understandable language, it will take the reader less time and energy to read the text. In doing so, they are more likely to become enthusiastic and motivated by a text that is not too complex.

What makes a text easy and pleasant to read? For that keep the following points in mind:

  • Do not use difficult/specialist words, but choose words that everyone knows.
  • Write concise, lively sentences that are easy to read.
    Do not forget to give the vacancy text a clear title and subheadings.
  • Use bullet points and keep your paragraphs short.
  • Choose a legible font and enough white spaces.

2. Bias: don't discriminate (unknowingly) on age and gender

Inclusive writing is done to address different types of people. You should not make any distinction based on age or gender. Unfortunately, this still happens (consciously and unconsciously) in many vacancy texts. For example, it may state that organizations are looking for students. Or that they are looking for candidates with a maximum of 8 years of work experience. By avoiding these kinds of sentences you can prevent age discrimination. A more sophisticated form of ageism in job openings can for example be describing the team as young and energetic.

There is something else going on when it comes to gender bias. Unconsciously, many texts have a more masculine tone of voice, which makes women feel less addressed when they read these texts. In many vacancies we also see words that refer to characteristics that are known as 'masculine'. See below some examples of masculine and feminine words.

Male

Female

Autonomously

Involved

Analytical

Communicative

Decisive

Customer-friendly

Result-oriented 

Honest

Driven

Sensitive

Firmly

Committed

 

Below you will find an example of a male-formulated job requirement
You are result oriented

Do you want to make this sentence feminine or gender neutral? Then choose the focus on behaviour:
You are able to achieve results

Check your vacancy texts for the amount of male (or female) characteristics you name in the profile and strive for a good mix of both.

3. The accessibility

You publish most vacancies online. No less than 25% of all internet users have a functional limitation. Then you have to think of people who are, for example, hard of hearing, blind or color blind. So you have to take digital accessibility into account. You don't just want to appeal to more people, but above all you don't want to exclude anyone.

It revolves around 4 principles. Include these in the texts you write for online use. The text must:

  • Be observable: people should be able to experience and use the website with the senses they have. Think of text alternatives for non-text content such as a video or image.
  • Be operable: people should be able to find and use the content on the website. For example, a page with content must also only be navigable with a keyboard and without a mouse.
  • Be understandable: people and software must be able to understand the content. Think of making the content readable and clear and of the language level.
  • Be robust: this is a bit technical, but the point is that the content must be reliable to interpret.

The above principles seem obvious, but various analyzes by Textmetrics show the opposite. The aforementioned study among 300 Dutch companies also looked at digital accessibility. The vast majority of companies have multiple accessibility issues. 

Inclusive writing thanks to augmented writing

The what and why of inclusive writing is clear. But the writing itself is trickier than you might think. As we saw above, there is a lot to consider. A condition is that you can place yourself in various target groups while writing.

Fortunately, there are handy tools that can help you make inclusive writing a lot easier. Then we are talking about data-driven platforms (eg Textmetrics). These can help to prevent exclusion through language use. You can see such a platform as a writing coach, who helps you achieve the D&I objectives.

In addition, many augmented writing platforms also give you suggestions for

  • Tone of voice
  • SEO Optimization
  • Avoiding words that are too difficult for the target audience

Would you like to know more about how a platform like Textmetrics can help you? Read more about Textmetrics' Smart Writing Assistant here.