If you’re an employer looking to fill a position, you know just how hard it can be. Do you keep things to your own company’s website or try to look further afield for a better chance at finding the best possible candidate?
Do you pay a recruiter or an online service, or try to go the free route?
While there are tons of great services out there, many of the best free job posting sites get the job done just as quickly and easily. Some of these are huge and attract all the right people to look into your posting. Many also go a step further, using advanced search algorithms and even AI to find the best match.
Let’s take a look at some of the best. While some names will be familiar, others may be new to you, and some will be a welcome surprise.
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Indeed
Competition is stiff in this field, and Indeed has managed to claw their way to the top. This is one of the biggest sites for job postings out there right now, with over 175 million resumes and profiles available right now. Over 250 million unique visits are made to this site every month, meaning it has the traffic to make sure your posting gets great exposure.
On Indeed, it’s free for you to post a vacancy and for a job seeker to post a profile. This enables you to screen potential candidates who match up best with your requirements. You can browse profiles, and even message potential hires to ask them for more information.
Be prepared for their new feature, though…
Indeed now has a section that allows users to post reviews of companies and is has over 300 million reviews live already. If you’re certain, you’re going to get rave reviews from your employees, go ahead and jump on in. Just remember that anything negative can be very damaging when using Indeed for hiring in the future.
Monster
There’s probably nobody out there in the hiring world who hasn’t heard of Monster. This company was the biggest, most widely recognized job posting company through the 2000s and heavily advertised all over the web.
These days, they might not still be the biggest, but they still get a heck of a lot of traffic. Over 150,000 jobs go up on this platform every month, and yours could be one of them. Monster offers paid Premium postings and also free Quick postings that are less visible and have fewer bells and whistles.
Variety of searches…
Potential hires can search for your job by keyword and location or by looking at your company profile. If you pay more, you can also bring in aptitude testing as part of your process, as well as interview coordination and scheduling.
If the free services don’t get you the recruits you need, you can always pay to boost your post and gain added visibility. Or you can be more proactive by searching out and inviting well-fitting workers to apply for your position.
LinkedIn is a different sort of job search website. Its focus is on networking and, indeed, brands itself as the biggest professional network in the world. Rather than posting basic profiles and resumes, job seekers can do a whole lot more. They can create links to past employers, gain recommendations, and make connections to professionals in their fields.
Likewise, you can make links with people who you think would be great hires. Even currently employed people can post “Available for Work” on their profiles for recruiters to see privately. You can link up to people who are in the same industry and who might be recommended by your current employees or coworkers as well.
Try it for free…
Though it’s mostly a paid service, you’re allowed to have one free live job posting for your company. Obviously, if you find the service to your liking, you can get into a paid package to use in the future. But at least there’s free posting possibility to let you try it out.
LinkedIn is used by over 800 million members in more than 200 countries. It’s massive and sure to get your job posting out to a huge labor pool.
Google for Jobs
Next on my rundown of the Best Free Job Posting Sites, if you want to get bigger than LinkedIn, you’ve got to move on to Google. Google for Jobs is their new and very quickly expanding service for job seekers. It uses Google’s detailed algorithms to scrape the entire Internet. I mean the whole thing.
This brings up jobs of all sorts in all places, though, of course, seekers can limit their searches by keywords and locations. Google can sometimes be too rigorous in its searching, as well all know. This can give job seekers returns that are out of date or poorly related to their search terms.
Be specific…
For these reasons, it’s important to have the right information posted on your website. You should have a clearly labeled “Jobs” or “Careers” section on your company’s website. Jobs should be clearly posted with terms like “Job Title,” “Salary,” “Qualifications,” etc., so that Google can find them easily. The dates for the application period should be clearly written, and this will be the most critical feature to help you get applications in.
Google doesn’t do anything to help applicants apply – they must do this directly, so make sure there’s clearly communicated contact information available, too.
While you might never have thought to use Facebook for job postings, it’s actually one of the biggest resources out there for employers to post their opportunities. And it’s free!
Facebook handles oodles of information and uses its search engine to help people connect, so why not for jobs too? There is a whole Jobs section on Facebook available to you to post your company’s openings. You can also simply post jobs on your company’s page directly, and the search function will hopefully still find them.
Job seekers can use Facebook to search for jobs by location, keywords, job types, and categories. They can also use a filter to look for jobs that offer certain ranges for compensation, like hourly, monthly, or annual rates.
Ladders ($100K Club)
The ladders website isn’t completely free, but you can use it on a basic free subscription basis which may be more than enough to meet the needs of your business. This site is a lot like the other big job search sites that I’ve discussed – users can go on and create profiles and post their resumes. The site boasts at least 25,000 recruiting companies who post thousands of positions with them.
However, there is one big difference that makes Ladders worth mentioning. This site is dedicated to high-paying jobs that pay salaries from 100,000 dollars a year and up. If your business is looking for a high-level executive or a super-skilled IT star, this might be just the place to look for them.
Ladders lets you post up to 10 free positions per month, which is already a lot for any small or even mid-sized business. You will be limited in being able to look at resumes, though. You get to look at just 10 per month as well, which isn’t much considering you could have up to 10 job postings. But if you only need to recruit for a position or two here and there, the free version may still work for you.
AngelList
AngelList is another job posting site that has worked out its niche market. That is, namely, recruiting for start-up companies.
The good news is that they offer an unlimited number of free job postings, unlike some other sites on this list. That means you can crank out the postings and recruit your entire team in just one place.
At the same time, however, free profiles here get only the basic treatment and have to compete with every other posting out there. If you want your jobs to get noticed and grab the attention of the best and brightest talent out there, you can pay to upgrade your profile for increased visibility.
Specialists in IT…
AngelList has been used by thousands of start-ups. Not all of them take off, but some have turned into well-known companies like Spotify, Stripe, and Twitch. There are over 130,000 jobs posted on the site currently, with most in the IT field and/or in remote work. Most but not all of the hiring companies are start-ups, so talent looking for an adventure and big potential returns start their searches here.
Handshake
Since we’re looking at niche sites, we might as well mention Handshake. This site is intended for employers seeking to recruit fresh college graduates. You know – the brightest, freshest people with spark, talent, and imagination!
If this is something your company is looking for, Handshake could be the best place for you to start advertising your positions. The site is linked with over 1,400 colleges, and that pulls in a pool of over nine million students who are regular site users. They also claim that all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies use their site – this can be good company or else some serious competition!
Let’s you do it all…
As an employer, you can post your job openings and collect applications. However, you can do a whole lot more, too. You can easily sift through profiles by searching for people by skillsets, institutions, or locations, or use their smart-match function. You can then look at resumes, invite people to apply, or message candidates directly.
And it’s free to use their “Core” service. You can upgrade to “Premium” if you want to host online events, collect stats, or increase your visibility.
Jora
Jora is another up and coming job posting site to keep an eye on. While it’s an international company based out of Australia, Jora’s US site has all the US-based jobs listed on it. Jora lets you post up to 10 free job ads per month with a free profile, and of course, gives you a whole lot more if you upgrade to a paid subscription.
As long as you stick to a basic plan, though, Jora is 100% free for your company as well as the job seekers using it. It has over two million jobs currently online and in active recruitment. You can post jobs directly onto the site. However, if you don’t want to spend the time, you can use XML integration to post to the site from your website’s XML feed.
Users on Jora are able to search for jobs by keywords, positions, and locations. As usual, you have to keep your information complete and up to date, then the site will do all the legwork for you.
Upwork
Coming to the end of my list of the Best Free Job Posting Sites, we have Upwork. This has clawed its way to the top spot for freelance job sites around the world and includes support and postings in 170 countries. It’s free to post jobs, but not exactly free to use.
Let me explain…
Because this is a freelancing job site, the focus is on piecework rates. You can post a job or a piece of work that you need doing. Freelancers from around the world can enter bids on the job, and you select who to hire. When you do hire someone for a job, all payments are handled through the site, which takes a percentage for its services.
However, if you’re not necessarily looking for a freelancer but could perhaps use a remote worker, this is also a good way to connect with people and try them out. You can hire a person for a small task at first to see how well they work. If you like them, you can contact them and hire them directly, so Upwork can be used to get a sample before you add someone to your team.
Read more: Sites That Will Pay You to Test Out Websites
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The Very Best Free Job Posting Sites
We’ve just had a look at 10 of the best job posting sites out there. Now it’s time to dig deeper and look into the ones that you found attractive. So, check out their About Us or How It Works pages and find out exactly what they will let you do for free and what you may need to pay more or upgrade to use.
Once you choose the site or sites that appeal to you the most, you can get to posting. Make sure your job postings are complete and detailed with all the information job seekers will need to get in touch with you. You can also be proactive and search through profiles and resumes and try to find the right workers for you or your company.
Either way, free job posting sites are an excellent way to get the word out to the world without breaking the bank.
Happy job posting and hiring!