Style & tone of voice

Brand awareness aims to delight, whereas, re-engagement should compel. With any goal, the right tone can move mountains.

This is deeper than the marketplace. A seasoned recruiter or new talent have very different needs. If you need help identifying the audience, reference our personas.

Your audience may have just come from a landing page, 3rd party site via advertising, a Facebook ad, etc. Considering this context can set the energy for your message. If you need help identifying where they are, reference our customer journey maps.

Whether you are speaking on behalf of yourself, the brand, a trusted Account Mgr., or as user interface guidance, choose one and stick to it.

With all the other aspects considered, clearly communicate why your message is important to your audience.

Reference the marketing funnel or customer journey and respect they may be hesitant, excited, disappointed. Speak to it fearlessly.

Be clear about the action you want the audience to take, where you will send them. Communicate it ahead of time.

Aim to simplify: remove words, scrutinize impact, and be your own devil’s advocate.

In a list of 3 items or more…

The oxford comma precedes the "and" and the final item in a list. This, that, and the other. Why do we prefer it? Consider this example, “We went caroling with our dogs, grandma and grandpa.” Who names their dogs grandma and grandpa? Weird.

Use emojis 👍

But sparingly, only when the meaning is totally clear, and at the beginning or end of a sentence. Email subject lines are a great use case. Be mindful of the the user journey as emojis convey a casual tone. Again, know your audience. Emoji use varies by format, even by social media channel. 

Localize your copy

Be aware of word choice and differences in spelling and meanings across country borders. When in doubt, use Textio to assist you in localizing your language. This applies to how you use numbers, such as dates or currency. 

Keep sentences short

Shorter sentences pack more punch and convey urgency. Your ideas will be easier to digest if you take care to break them into bite-sized chunks.

Feel free to abbreviate role levels (Mgr., Sr., Dir., etc)

Job titles can get long and cumbersome. As long as you are not writing legal or formal documents, feel free to shorten levels in titles. This only applies to these words when they are used to denote level, and not when part of the role name itself.

Use italics for titles of work

Talk talent to me or The Ultimate Guide to Salary Negotiation are italicized to indicate they are published works.

Do not use "hired" as a verb

Avoid phrases like "You got hired!" to keep any brand confusion to a minimum. Look for other ways to talk about finding a job or filling a role.

Do not use Hi_ or Hired_ in copy

Our new brand is still in its infancy. Any distortion of the logo will dilute the power of our mark.

Do not use more than one exclamation point

We're all guilty of it!! Convey your excitement with word-choice and give the most important thoughts more punch. Also avoid using more than one exclamation point per paragraph. (Social copy gets a soft pass on this rule).

Do not use dehumanizing language

A job search is a very personal and often emotional experience. As you write, consider if you'd like to be spoken about in the language you're using. Phrases like "closing candidates" can make our users feel like a commodity.

Do not underline or italicize to emphasize words

The underscore is prominent in our logo and will be used in graphics and illustrations. Protect the brand and our content — use bold or color to emphasize words and phrases.

Best practices

• Keep paragraphs under 5 sentences. In digital writing this is even more important. Think about what it would look like on a mobile screen and break them up. Shorter paragraphs are  easier to read.

• Break up (non-list) sentences that use two or more commas

• Use bold or color to show emphasis

• Write out numbers less than 10, and use numerals for anything above, unless it’s starting a sentence (exception: years). 

  • Out of the 50 emails, only nine responded to the survey. Eighteen percent responded. 2022 was a crazy year. (Exception: naming conventions, e.g. 9th U.S. Circuit Court.)

• Use “quotes” when quoting someone, and include terminal punctuation inside of the closing quote

• Use line breaks instead of indents to mark new paragraphs

• No ampersands in body copy.

• Avoid overusing the word “that.” Ninety percent of the time it’s completely useless.

*Some of these differ from headlines

Best practices

• Keep CTAs under 24 characters

• Use three words or less

• Clarify the action the user is taking by describing what they might find on the following page, or the action they’ll be performing once they click through. Be clear ("Download the report" not "Download now")

  • This is partly an accessibility practice - screen readers will read the text, so be specific when writing button or CTA copy about the action.

  • Play around with variations, too. Studies show “Learn More” is overused and provokes a “meh,” whereas “Get Ideas,” “Show Me How,” or “Watch Now,” inspire better CTRs.

• Avoid using words like “here” and “click” in the CTA. We can assume a certain amount of tech-savviness in our audience (Download the report not Download the report here)

Style

• Default to full name when in doubt. Use preferred name if available. 

• Always include role and company. If possible, use the company logo.

Style

• Precede decimals with a zero (0.45 not .45)

• Use uppercase letters when shortening a large number (100K not 100k, $225K per year)

  • K = 1,000

  • M = 1,000,000

  • B = 1,000,000,000

• Use title case for data labels on charts (Interview Requests) and sentence case for chart titles (Interview requests by gender)

• Exception to body copy/numeral guidance here - may use numbers < 10 when referring to data, but spell out at the beginning of sentence in body, ok in headlines, e.g. Only 4% agreed. Six percent said they’d prefer more time off.

Styleguide

• Use the full spelling of the day and month where possible. Abbreviate if space is tight.

• If you need to abbreviate, use MM/DD/YY (US) or DD/MM/YY (Europe)

  • Lead with zeros for single digits (06/13/21 not 6/13/21)

  • Use only two digits for years

• Default to Eastern Time (Hired’s HQ) for broad audiences

• Use local time zones for targeted messaging

• Always include time zone notation, and always double check EST vs. EDT

  • Note: Daylight savings or standard time doesn’t happen at the same time everywhere. Google this if planning events during these changeover seasons. 

• Use multiple times/time zones if appropriate