Where you advertise decides who sees the job. Most teams post everywhere, track nothing, and conclude that job boards do not work.
Choosing where to post
Start from the talent map in Module 3 — you already know where these people are. Then sort the options by what they actually do:
| Where | Good for | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Your own careers page | The most interested visitors, no cost per application | Only works if people can find it — see the last lesson |
| Big general job boards | Volume and speed | Volume is rarely the problem for specialist jobs |
| Niche and community boards | Specialist jobs, engaged audiences | Small numbers. Needs the right community |
| Job search aggregators | Reach without posting anywhere | Depends entirely on your page code |
| Professional networks | People not actively looking; visibility | Expensive, and overlaps heavily with searching |
| Referrals | The best conversion of any source | Narrows the pool towards your existing team |
That last caution is worth taking seriously. Referrals convert best and make your team more similar fastest. Use them, and watch what they do to the shape of your pipeline over a year.
Posting once, appearing everywhere
Post in one place and let it syndicate, rather than creating the job separately in six places. Doing it by hand produces drift — different titles, different salary figures, different closing dates — and every version is a page a candidate might find.
Duplicate listings also compete with each other in search results, and the one that wins is rarely the one you want. Where a board lets you link back rather than host the application, take it, so the main version stays on your own site.
Knowing where people came from
The most common reporting failure in hiring is source data that is useless by the time you need it. Three rules fix most of it:
- One tagged link per place you post. Not one link posted everywhere.
- Record the source automatically from the link. Asking "how did you hear about us?" produces answers like "internet" and "a friend", and people pick the first option in the list about a third of the time.
- Know the difference between where they first heard about you and where they applied. Someone who saw a board advert, then searched your company and applied directly, gets recorded as direct. Knowing this stops you cancelling the advert that was actually working.
Paying for advertising
Pay when the pool is small, the job is urgent, or your own site has no reach yet.
Do not pay to fix a problem that is really a job advert problem. Paying to show an unappealing advert to more people buys you more people not applying.
Judge paid channels on cost per hire, never cost per application. A channel producing 200 applications and no hires is not cheap — it costs you the money and the time spent screening.
One table, every quarter
List every place you post: cost, applications, how many got through screening, and hires. Most teams find two places producing nearly all the hires and four consuming most of the budget. Cut the four, move the money to the two, and spend the rest on your own careers page.