Best Ways To Advertise A Job

Post A Job For Free, Promote It For A Fee

Post a Job

Finding just the right person for a job is hard enough, but it’s even more difficult when you hardly have any applicants to choose from. If you find yourself in this situation, you may need to put a little more effort into advertising your job opening.

In this article, we’ll go over ten of the best ways to advertise a job opening and tips on how to make the most of your marketing efforts.

Key Takeaways:

• LinkedIn, social media, and online job boards are all great places to post your job.

• Encouraging employees to make referrals and reaching out to local schools and professional development organizations can be highly effective in advertising a job.

• No matter what advertising methods you use, always include a call to action and keep your branding consistent.

10 of the Best Ways to Advertise a Job Opening

1. Post it on your website. This may sound like a simple step, but it’s actually very important. Your company may have customers or jobseekers who know they want to work for you and will visit your website to see which jobs are open.

   Because of this, make it easy to find your job listing – visitors should be able to get to it from the home page, whether that’s through a “Careers” tab or a slider image promoting the specific position.

   Make sure the job description page has a link to the application as well, and then share the listing on all of your other advertisements.

2. Post it on online job boards. When someone is looking for a job, one of the first places they usually go is online job boards. Because of this, posting your open position on these boards is a great way to advertise it.

   You don’t have to put it on every single job board if you don’t want to – research which ones your target market visits most often and focus your efforts there. There are also industry-specific job boards that could be beneficial as well.

   No matter which job boards you decide to use, make sure you’re infusing your job descriptions with the keywords that your ideal candidates are searching for – otherwise, your posting may go entirely unnoticed.

3. Put it on social media. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all great ways to get the word out that you’re hiring. Your followers are made up of people who already like what you’re doing, so they’re more likely than the rest of the world to be interested in working for you.

   In addition, posting a job opening on social media makes it easy for your current employees to share the listing, which means people with similar interests and professional experience to your current employees will likely see your post.

   Use both organic posts and paid ads to advertise your job so that you can take full advantage of all social media has to offer – just remember to always check to be sure you aren’t being discriminatory in your ad targeting settings, even if it’s unintentional.

4. Put it on LinkedIn. When you post a job on LinkedIn, the platform can notify people who match the criteria you’re looking for.

   Not only that, but many LinkedIn users will search for jobs or companies they’d be interested in on this platform, so you might as well make yours easy for them to find by posting it here.

   Since LinkedIn is also a form of social media, the platform also makes it easy for your current employees to share the job posting with their professional connections, exponentially broadening your reach.

5. Utilize employee referrals. Many companies have employee referral bonus plans to encourage current workers to recommend their friends and colleagues for open jobs.

   In these programs, employees who refer someone to a position get a bonus if that person gets hired and stays in the position for a certain period (usually 30 or 60 days).

   These programs not only encourage your employees to spread the word about job openings in the company, but they also help you get higher-quality candidates.

   There is always a chance someone recommends a dud, but most employees want to avoid the embarrassment of attaching their name to someone who isn’t a good worker, so usually, you’ll get high-quality candidates.

6. Reach out to local schools. Local colleges and universities – and even high schools, depending on your hiring needs – can be great resources for job candidates. Reach out and ask about advertising opportunities, job boards, and upcoming job fairs they may have.

   This is an excellent advertising technique if you are about to have a lot of entry-level jobs open up, as most students about to graduate need a job but may not know where to look.

   If you have more mid-level than entry-level positions you need to fill, look for nearby graduate and doctorate programs – these students usually graduate with significantly more industry experience than undergraduate students do, and they may be a good fit.

7. Connect with your local chamber of commerce. This is especially valuable if you live in a small town. People often reach out to chambers of commerce when they move to town to find out about local businesses, so if your local chamber knows you’re hiring, they’ll be able to point any of these newcomers who are looking for a job to you.

   The chamber may also have advertising opportunities for your job posting that you otherwise wouldn’t be aware of.

8. Run ads in industry publications. If your industry has any journals, magazines, or even blogs, check to see what advertising opportunities they may have. Even if it’s getting your company’s name put on a list of hiring organizations, that’s one more way to reach qualified candidates.

9. Reach out to industry clubs, societies, or professional development organizations. Many of these organizations have their own job boards for their members to access or other ways of advertising who’s hiring.

   Since the members of these organizations are invested enough in their careers to learn more about their industry outside of work, you have a good chance of finding high-quality candidates this way.

10. Make a video advertisement. Many companies and organizations (the U.S. military, for example) make high-quality video advertisements targeted toward potential job candidates.

    These videos highlight the employer’s culture, showing candidates what they’d get to be a part of if they joined the organization and what their new employer can do for them. You can post your video on your website and on YouTube and then share it across social media – ask your employees to share it as well to multiply your reach.

    You can also use it as a paid advertisement on social media or your local TV channels.

Tips for Advertising a Job

Make the most of your advertising efforts by always remembering to include a link to the application and making sure you’re targeting the right audience.

1. Consider who your audience is. You can’t (and shouldn’t) get so specific with who you’re advertising to that you leave people out, but you can use some common sense and choose advertising methods that will reach the people who are most likely to be interested in the role.

   If you’re looking for entry-level candidates, for example, you’ll probably want to focus your efforts more on local colleges and universities rather than your top industry publications.

   At the same time, if you’re looking to fill an executive role, you may want to favor advertising on LinkedIn over Facebook since LinkedIn has a more concentrated number of people already established in their careers who would qualify for the role.

2. Always include a call to action. If your goal in advertising is to get people to apply for your job, make it easy for them to do so. That means putting a simple “Apply now,” or “Click here to find out more,” with a link to the application in every advertisement.

3. Keep your employer branding consistent. Just as you would in your regular advertising efforts, make sure your company’s voice, graphics, and overall feel are consistent across all of your job advertisements.

   From videos to social media graphics, viewers should be able to look at all of your advertisements and have no doubt that they’re from the same company. If you need help with this, talk to your marketing department – they’ve had a lot of practice representing your company’s brand across platforms.

4. Compare yourself to the competition. If you’re noticing your job posting isn’t getting nearly as many hits as the similar one your competitor posted on the same site, take a look at theirs to see how it differs from yours.

   Check for popular search terms that you may be missing, the posting’s overall readability, and even the information about perks and benefits they include.

   Your compensation plan might be comparable to theirs, but if they spend a whole paragraph listing employee perks and you don’t mention any, candidates are probably going to choose theirs.

5. Make sure your job description is clear. Job descriptions are tricky because they’re written by people who have a wealth of background knowledge that applicants don’t. As a result, these postings can be unnecessarily vague and difficult to decipher, making job seekers hesitant to apply.

   To avoid this, make sure your job description is crystal clear. Outline the overarching responsibilities as well as specific tasks, and detail both the required and preferred qualifications.

   Include as much information about salary and benefits as possible too. People don’t want to apply for a job that appears to have nothing in it for them, so even if you can’t be too specific, list at least a few of the perks that you provide.

Advertising a Job FAQ

1. How do you advertise a job for free?

   You can advertise a job for free by posting it on your website and sharing it on social media and LinkedIn. You can get even more traction by asking your current employees to share it on their profiles as well – all without paying a dime.

2. What are the best social media platforms to advertise jobs?

   The best social media platforms to advertise jobs are LinkedIn and Facebook. Both have specific templates designed for job postings, which helps people immediately recognize that they’re looking at a job opening.

   Both offer plenty of opportunities for reaching the right candidates as well. A significant portion of LinkedIn’s users are either actively job-hunting or are open to the idea of a new job, for example, while Facebook simply has a massive amount of reach to all kinds of candidates.

3. How do you attract people to a job posting?

   You can attract people to a job posting by using eye-catching graphics and clear copy. When people don’t have to work hard to figure out what you’re trying to tell them, they’re far more likely to be interested in it. Make it clear what the job title is, what its responsibilities include, and what’s in it for the candidate.

Final Thoughts

Finding the right person for a job can be tricky, especially if you don’t have very many applicants. Increase your pool of candidates by using one – or several – of these advertising strategies, always remembering to be clear and stay on brand.

References

1. The University of Arizona Student Engagement and Career Development – How to Write a Job Description That Attracts Top Candidates

Author

Caitlin Mazur

Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia where she has written 140+ articles that have reached over 1 mil viewers as of June 2023. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research.