All About Blind Job Postings

Sharing is caring!

Anyone who’s ever applied for a job before knows that it’s a stressful, time consuming prospect.

Not only do you have to learn how to present yourself as the best candidate, but you have to navigate a seemingly endless ocean of jargon.

There’s little we like more than making confusing things clear, so in today’s post we’re going to look at the phrase “blind job posting.”
 

What is a blind job posting?

A blind job posting is a job announcement where the name of the hiring company is not listed. Think of “blind” as meaning “anonymous” in this case. The benefit of blind job postings is that companies get applicants who are interested in a specific job rather than any work at a specific company.
 

The type of contents you will find in a blind job posting

The phrase “blind job posting” doesn’t refer to anyone having trouble with their vision. Rather, blind job postings are hiring announcements that don’t mention the name of the company looking for employees.

The next time you see a blind job posting, read it carefully and you’ll notice that even when the job is well-described, any details which might allow you to figure out who you’d work for have been removed.

This doesn’t mean you’ll be completely in the dark, however.

Typically, blind job postings do provide some kind of information about the hiring company.

An announcement might describe the employer as “a leader in the automotive industry” or “a fortune 500 company,” for example.

No matter how much or how little detail is provided, though, a blind job posting will never directly name the organization doing the hiring.
 

How to apply for a blind job posting

Blind job postings are a weird concept if you’re used to applying for jobs through a company website.

You might wonder how you can apply for a job if you don’t even know how to contact the organization posting it.

Fortunately, this is usually easy to figure out. Most, if not all, organizations making a blind job posting will work with a recruitment agency or other hiring company to collect candidate information for them.

In the modern age of web-based applications, you can usually start your application right from the job posting, uploading your resume or CV and typing your job history directly into the web browser.

In the rare cases where you can’t apply from the job posting itself, there should be information about an email address or website to visit in order to start the application process.

 

Why companies use blind job postings

It seems bizarre that a company might want an employee who isn’t interested in knowing what their name is.

You might suspect that these hiring notices are less than legitimate as a result. However, there are several legitimate reasons for the practice of blind job postings.

First, large organizations don’t always want their competitors knowing who they’re hiring and why.

Especially if the reason for someone’s departure from a high-profile role was sensitive, companies may prefer to run a blind job posting for the position.

Additionally, research shows that blind job postings can reduce bias, especially if hiring is outsourced to third party companies.

The practice can be an efficient and inclusive way to increase a company’s diversity and thus its strength.

A less important reason is that organizations may want to reduce the number of candidates who aren’t passionate about the actual work.

Although they’re not common, there are some job applicants who clearly just want to work for a specific company and don’t care what they do there.

These people don’t make great employees if the job they end up getting is a poor match, which can lead to frustration and another round of hiring.
 

Blind job posting tips and tricks

Applying to blind job postings is similar in many ways to any job application, but there are some significant differences. Here are a few tips and tricks to make the process easier.

• Look for key words in the job description – In normal applications, you can pull from an organization’s philosophy statement as you write your application. Since that’s missing in a blind job posting, you’ll need to pay close attention to the job description itself.
• Don’t be shy about the company name – If you receive an interview, make a point of asking who you’ll be working for. It’s important information, and just because the company doesn’t want their competitors to know what they’re missing doesn’t mean you need to stay ignorant.
• Be cautious – Although they’re few and far between, there are some companies that are not trustworthy. These organizations try to use blind job postings to attract unwitting victims. The bottom line is that if a job description sounds too good to be true it probably is.

 

“Blind” as “anonymous”

Now that we’ve nailed down the meaning of “blind job posting,” let’s talk a little more about this specific use of the word “blind.”

In fact, “blind” is often used as a synonym for “anonymous,” implying that you can’t ‘see’ something about the topic in question.

For example, if a scientific journal reviews submission without knowing the names of the people who wrote them, they are using what is called a “blind” review process.

There are even “double blind“ review processes where the people writing the papers don’t know anything about their reviewers and the reviewers don’t know anything about the writers.

Similarly, in book publishing some organizations request “blind submissions” to avoid bias.
 

“Blind job posting” and ableism

An important side bar is that many people are beginning to point out the negative connotation of “blind” in this context.

It might seem counterintuitive, since it’s a fact that blind people can’t see, but some argue that the use of “blind” here is a form of ableism because it implies that people who can’t see are somehow unaware of things or otherwise ignorant.

In fact, there’s a movement to avoid using words that describe disabilities in any contexts, since these usages can often have unintended negative impacts on those with that disability.

Although the phrase “blind job posting” isn’t going away any time soon, academics and publishers are starting to shy away from using “blind” as a result, and instead simply using the word “anonymous.” This has two benefits: it’s less ableist and it’s a lot more obvious what you mean.