Women are 16 per cent more likely to get hired for the jobs they apply for. Those are the findings of a new gender insights report from the team at LinkedIn.

Does that indicate a bias towards women? That number makes it appear as though hiring managers are showing a preference for female candidates. However, the details are more revealing than that – and there is something that male job seekers can learn from the increased success that women are having.

The gender report found that women were also 16 per cent less likely to apply for a job after viewing it. In fact, female candidates apply for 20 per cent fewer jobs than their male counterparts.

We have noted this before: the key to getting hired is not sending out more applications, it is sending out better ones. Think quality over quantity.

Female candidates tend to do more research on the company and the role they are applying for, spend more time creating a customized application, and therefore see a greater success rate for their applications.

Men are more likely to rapidly apply for every available position, but those applications have less of a chance of landing them the job.

Another difference between male and female job candidates that the LinkedIn report noted is that women are more reluctant than men to apply for jobs for which they do not meet 100 per cent of the qualifications. While both genders browse jobs similarly, they apply to them differently. Men are more likely to apply for a role after meeting about 60 per cent of the requirements.

While women are more selective than men when considering jobs, they’re also more likely to get hired when they apply. If women only apply when they feel extremely qualified, it makes sense that they’d have a higher success rate — but this could also indicate they are not pursuing stretch opportunities. However, the study found that when female candidates do apply for stretch roles, they are 18 per cent more likely to get hired for them than men.

Apply for stretch jobs. Other recent studies have shown that once you meet 50 per cent of the qualifications for a role, you have just as much chance of landing an interview as candidates with 80 per cent of the requirements. (You can read more about that data here.)

Apply for fewer positions, but make your application better. Take the care and time to select the most relevant positions for you, research the role and create tailored, specific applications. Women already do this more than men – and that is why they are hired for more of the jobs they apply to.

Source: LinkedIn – Gender Balance Report