Conquering the Mighty Text Limit

One of the most frustrating aspects of applying for almost anything these days—from awards to fellowships to grants—is answering open-ended questions that have tight word or character limits.

I’m reminded of this once again because it’s the season to apply for Seramount “best place to work” lists. (These are the annual employer lists formerly sponsored by the now-defunct Working Mother magazine.) The essay questions on those applications are optional, but I’ve helped companies with their applications for years, and I’ve never known one to skip the essay. This year’s essay questions for most of the Seramount lists (“100 Best Companies,” “Best Companies for Multicultural Women,” etc.) remain at a tight 10,000 characters, as they’ve been for the past several years. That’s about three and half pages, which isn’t bad, but if you’ve got a lot of programs to boast about, and maybe want to throw in some quotes, it can still be a challenge. Meanwhile, the limits in Seramount’s “Best Law Firms for Women and Diversity” have shrunk from 1,500 words (about 7,500 characters) in past years to just 3,000 characters this year.

Yes, You Probably Can Fit It All

Figuring out how to say what you want to say within a tight text limit is a challenge, no doubt about it. It can also be excruciatingly frustrating. But it’s far from impossible. Whether the limit is 250 characters or 2,500, aspire never to omit a significant detail because of lack of space. You may think you can’t fit it in—and maybe you can’t. But you also may be inadvertently chipping away at your text-allotment in all kinds of unnecessary ways.

Here are some tips on conquering text limits, based on my experience working on these sorts of applications:

1. Don’t dither away your character count with platitudes and clichés: “Employees are our greatest asset?” “We hire the best and the brightest?” Hmm…you and every other company that’s written a mission statement in the last couple hundred decades. If you find yourself writing a sentence like, “We strive to create an environment in which employees can maximize their talents and achieve their goals no matter what their gender, race or ethnicity,” just stop. Who doesn’t strive to create such an environment? The point is not what your company hopes for, it’s what you are doing to get there.
2. Save the corporate hype for your website. Your company may produce the highest-rated electric pancake flippers in the industry, as identified by Entrepreneurial Breakfast magazine for seven straight years, but unless you’re going for an award in hi-tech kitchen gadgetry it probably isn’t relevant to what makes you a great workplace.
3. Skip the generalities. The folks reviewing your “best workplace” application know that flexible work arrangements or generous parental leave policies can help companies attract and retain workers. It’s their business to know, so don’t waste space telling them (unless you have actual data showing that such policies have had that specific effect on your company, in which case absolutely include it).
4. Put your subheads to work. When space is limited, every word must pull its weight—pack your subheads with substantive information. For example, instead of the subhead “Parental Leave,” try, “We Provide 6 Weeks Parental Leave.”
5. Watch for meaningless clauses and two-words-when-one-will do. A few paragraphs back, I initially wrote, “your goal should be never to leave out a significant detail…” Then, just for the sake of practice (while my blog has no word limit, your patience may) I changed “leave out” to “omit” and “your goal should be” to “aspire:” “Aspire never to omit a significant detail…” These two little changes reduced the character count by nearly a third, and the word count even more. Here are some other examples of unnecessarily wordy phrasing—and ways around them:

“The program serves to increase the retention of women” means the same thing as: “The program increases the retention of women” or, better yet: “The program increases women’s retention.”

“All five of our offices,” means the same thing as: “All five offices.”

“We offer this program as a means of supporting employees” means the same thing as: “We offer this program to support employees” or “This program supports employees.”

“It is our hope” means the same thing as “We hope.”

“Has the ability” means the same as “is able”—or “can.”

Also watch for phrases like “the program aims to” or “the program is intended to.” Sometimes they are necessary, if you’re really trying to set out a program’s goals. But sometimes, you’re just trying to say what the program does. A lactation program doesn’t aim to help women returning after childbirth. It helps them.

A faculty member at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, has created a useful list of suggested replacements for numerous wordy phrases. I highly recommend it.

6. Just think lean! Lean doesn’t have to mean choppy and style-free. In fact, most times you’ll find that lean writing is better writing. Consider:

FAT: Our CEO, Marvin Bagsley, gave a presentation about our core values. His presentation included a discussion of our work-life programs, in which he emphasized how they support our employees and their ability to balance work and family responsibilities. (250 characters)

LEAN: CEO Marvin Bagsley presented the company’s core values, emphasizing the role work-life programs play in supporting employees’ work-life balance. (144 characters)

The lean version saves you a whopping 106 characters. And seriously, now, which one would you rather read?

That’s it! You can do it! Go forth and conquer those limits!

Angling to get on a “best employer” or other such list? Looking for help on your corporate blog? Trying to sell a benefits change to your employees?  You can’t win if you can’t tell your story. Why not let me give you a hand?