Everything You Should Know About Textio

If you’ve been looking for easy ways to streamline your company’s recruitment and talent acquisitions processes, you might’ve heard of Textio. 

Textio is a program that optimizes the entire employee lifecycle from start to finish. But it’s not the only app that does so. 

In our guide, we’ll explain what Textio is, its advantages and disadvantages, and alternatives you can try instead. 

Everything You Should Know About Textio

Textio — founded in 2014 and based in Seattle — is a platform that allows users to enhance the quality of a brand’s writing and content. For example, through editing, scoring, and analysis, Textio improves company content such as:

• Emails
• Branded blogs
• Job site writing

There’s a main hub that allows recruiters and hiring managers to make writing and content workflows to then be edited, reviewed, approved, and eventually pushed on the platform. 

Specifically, Textio helps get rid of bias and better promote DEIB initiatives by assisting brands with their business writing and audience impact to make sure it reaches as many people as possible.

Who uses Textio?

Textio has tons of clients, including big name companies. For example, some of the brands that use Textio include names like:

• Johnson & Johnson
• Cisco
• Hulu
• Tesco
• Oracle
• McDonald’s
• Ebay
• American Express
• Spotify

Does Textio use AI?

Textio uses both machine learning and generative AI in its mission to rid content of bias, especially in professional spaces. 

More and more companies are taking advantage of AI and Textio isn’t an exception. 

Textio Advantages

Textico has a number of features and advantages offered for companies and brands. Of all its offerings, there are four primary highlights:

• Recruitment and talent acquisition
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Performance management
• Partnerships

We’ll take a look at each individual feature and its benefits to get a better idea of Textio as a whole. 

Recruitment and talent acquisition

Perhaps Textio’s biggest claim to fame lies in its recruitment and talent acquisition solutions. Recruiting and hiring teams can use this platform to optimize job listings and, ultimately, the way in which respective companies communicate with candidates. 

By using on-brand, inclusive language, Textio can help companies reach and appeal to the most candidates. When brands use consistent communication, potential applicants are more likely to keep exploring the company’s offerings.

Plus, recruitment and talent acquisition can be a famously slow process. Textio allows companies to write job descriptions more efficiently, reducing any need for back-and-forth communication between teams. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

Discrimination, inequity, exclusion, and microaggressions at workplaces aren’t uncommon. But that doesn’t mean they have to be. Textio can help improve diversity, equity, and inclusion by mitigating the unconscious bias and providing metrics to better elucidate issues. 

Because bias isn’t always explicit, Textio can track language data to identify any problematic patterns within the company in terms of exclusion and inequity — two aspects that can easily be disguised or forgotten about on an average workday.

In addition to that, Textio evaluates bias at not just the recruiting stage, but also the entire employment life cycle. 

For example, although bias in hiring is extremely detrimental in its own right, employees who face discrimination at work are forced to exist in a hostile environment. That’s why Textio has bias interruption programs for both performance management and recruitment. 

Fighting bigotry and bias is a lifelong journey, and as such, Textio aims to build education right into the workplace from the ground up. This company goes beyond just a yearly mandatory training, opting instead for a continuous guidance on DEIB at work. 

Performance management

In terms of performance management, Textio can offer company managers some guidance on how to best conduct performance reviews that are not only free of bias, but also actionable for employees to act on.

Although unconscious bias is a problem that exists in every aspect of our lives, Textio assists managers in recognizing and eliminating bias in their own performance feedback. In doing so, this platform ensures that there are equitable opportunities for growth for all employees. 

On top of that, managers can improve and grow with Textio’s real-time guidance and tips, as well as its professional training offerings to help managers better understand how to deliver performance feedback that’s free of biases. This is one of the main advantages of this tool, since training for managers can be too expensive to be considered. It can save time and money having training integrated right into your performance management system. 

Partnerships

Another benefit to Textio is its network of partnerships. This brand network includes people dedicated to creating more equitable, inclusive, and diverse workplaces.

Textio offers co-marketing, co-selling, integrations, and collaborations with partners. Brands interested in partnership opportunities can apply on the Textio site. 

Textio Disadvantages

Still, that’s not to say Textio is perfect. There are a handful of disadvantages that users have noticed, including its lack of cost transparency, the number of languages supported, and customer support services that aren’t up to par.

Let’s take a closer look into these Textio disadvantages. 

Lack of cost transparency

One of the biggest drawbacks to Textio is its lack of cost transparency. Unlike other tools, Textio offers no clear pricing information, leaving users guessing. 

In the past, Textio used to charge users about $59 per month, which can definitely be considered pricey, depending on your budget. Customer reviews from 2022 describe the cost as being too high to justify considering the use of the product. 

The information is vague. Textio seems to offer itself up as a subscription-based type of service, yet doesn’t provide any actionable information or guidance as far as how to secure a subscription. 

Although it’s hard to confirm without connecting with support, Textio doesn’t seem to be a free service and the lack of cost transparency is frustrating to some users. 

Number of languages supported

Another small complaint according to Textio customers is the number of languages supported. Textio is only available in English, so companies and businesses who need guidance in any other language besides English are out of luck. 

Although the company acknowledged in 2022 that the lack of languages supported is certainly a pitfall, Textio stood firm in its decision to not “expand beyond English.”

Mediocre customer service support

Textio users have also complained about the platform’s disappointing customer service support. Although the platform does have its own customer support center with frequently asked questions, users say this isn’t up to par. It’s also only available on weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific Time. 

Even though Textio also gives users options to reach out via phone (800-898-1401) or email (sales@textio.com), customers say the response time isn’t sufficient, calling the support “non-existent.”  

Best Textio Alternatives

If disadvantages like the lack of cost transparency or the number of languages supported outweigh the advantages, there are also some Textio alternatives worth checking out. 

Here are the four best Textio alternatives to experiment with.

1. Yoodli

Another app that aids in the shift toward more inclusive, diverse, and equitable workplaces is Yoodli. Yoodli is an app that uses generative AI to analyze speech and to provide private, real-time feedback on your unconscious bias. 

For example, recruiters can use Yoodli during interviews with potential candidates to make sure they’re not going off on a tangent or monologuing. In recordings with multiple people, it’ll even break down the talk and listen time to show if you’re interrupting others. 

Just like Textio, Yoodli also highlights non-inclusive language that could be a result of your unconscious bias. Not only that, but Yoodli’s actionable suggestions will help you course correct and improve your communication. 

In addition to aiding companies in more appropriate DEIB initiatives, Yoodli also helps improve individual communication skills by analyzing a person’s speech and offering specific metrics on things like:

• Word choice
• Filler word usage
• Body language
• How loud or soft you speak
• A full transcript of what was said

Unlike Textio, Yoodli is completely free for anyone to use. 

2. SeekOut

Another viable option is SeekOut. This program focuses on talent management, recruitment, and talent analytics to stand out from other apps.

Like Textio, SeekOut aims to take the guesswork out of managing and bringing on new hires. It uses tools like 1-click contact info, bulk exports, and diversity filters to make talent acquisition easier. Clients call those features, particularly the diversity filters, as “game changers.”

When compared to Textio, SeekOut users say the customer service support is much better. Clients also report that SeekOut is better at meeting their personal expectations and requirements than Textio.  

3. Datapeople

Formerly known as TapRecruit, Datapeople is a program that offers augmentation and organization for talent acquisition data to streamline a brand’s hiring process and employee life cycle. 

Like Textio, its goal is to improve the hiring process, including things like job descriptions. In fact, users rave most about Datapeople’s ability to gamify and improve descriptions for roles available for hire. 

Compared to Textio, clients say the customer support services are much better. 

4. Greenhouse

Greenhouse is another option worth checking out. This company is a hiring software focused on candidate engagement and interaction. The goal of Greenhouse is to optimize the talent acquisition so managers and administrators can focus on other pressing tasks. 

The brand is also openly committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. As such, companies who use Greenhouse can also work on making a more equitable hiring process while also minimizing bias. 

This Textio alternative in particular stands out as it has some big names attached, such as DoorDash and Wayfair. 

As you might’ve expected, Greenhouse users say its customer support services are superior to Textio’s support offerings. 

Other Textio FAQs

Before wrapping up, here are some more Textio FAQs to keep in mind when checking out this option. 

Who is the CEO of Textio?

The CEO of Textio is Kieran Snyder, who’s also the cofounder of the company. Snyder has a history as a data writer and a software product leader, with experience in things like product marketing, SaaS, product management, and natural language processing. She also attended the University of Pennsylvania and has a PhD in linguistics and cognitive science.

What is a good Textio score?

A Textio score of 90 or higher is recommended by the company as a good score. Anything less than a 90 suggests that the content is low quality, offensive, or non-inclusive.

What languages does Textio support?

Textio only supports the English language and doesn’t have plans to support any other language.

The Key Takeaway

Textio is an impressive program that aims to change workplaces from the inside out. It’s an easy way for employers and companies to invest in DEIB in a practical way. 

But if Textio isn’t a good fit, try an alternative like Yoodli. It’s worth putting the effort in to improve the employee lifecycle.