This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
Why pay for something if you can get it for free?
That goes for job candidates, too. Why pay money to post a job opening when you can do it for free? There are plenty of free job posting sites where you can find new employees without spending a dime.
Ah, but that’s the problem. There are so many of these free job posting sites now. It seems like there are more every day. How can you possibly know which ones are worth your time?
We were curious about this, so we’ve done a side-by-side comparison of eight major job posting sites where you can post help-wanted listings for free.
Before we compare your options, we have an important bit of advice for employers who are looking for a free job posting site: Use specific job titles and keywords in your job listing. Generally speaking, when you post a job for free, it starts out near the top of the search results, but then it falls further down over time. The right job title and keywords will help job seekers find it.
Also, you should know right off the bat that all of the best free job posting sites offer certain basic services for free, but they charge money for more advanced services, and they charge even more money for premium services.
With these free job posting sites, we’ll tell you how to maximize your chances of finding qualified job applicants free of charge.
1. ZipRecruiter: Post a Job on Dozens of Boards
ZipRecruiter is free for employers to try for four days. After that, there are various packages you can buy, depending on your needs.
This site is useful if you need a job opening to be posted widely so you can hire someone quickly. ZipRecruiter is a marketplace that allows employers to post a job opening to multiple online job listings at the same time.
ZipRecruiter uses artificial intelligence to decide where to post your job vacancies, and it uses its matching technology to analyze millions of data points to find the best potential matches for your job.
For its paid services, ZipRecruiter offers three different monthly plans — Standard, Premium and Pro. Prices are based on how many jobs you need to post and how many sites you want your job opportunities to be posted on. Prices start as low as $16 per day for one reusable job post.
You can pay extra for sponsored posts to give your job postings premium placement on job sites. There’s also a “traffic boost” option that allows you to send out job postings via email, attracting more applicants. You can also sort through resumes on your ZipRecruiter dashboard.
Once you post jobs, ZipRecruiter’s AI can promote your listings and send job alerts to candidates who are more likely to be interested and qualified. The AI tools can also help you right-size your recruitment efforts to keep your spending efficient and on budget.
Do you already have recruiting software? If so, ZipRecruiter will help you integrate your current applicant tracking system into its platform.
2. Glassdoor: Employees Rate Employers
Glassdoor is free for employers to try for seven days.
It was launched in 2008 as a company-review website where employees and former employees could write reviews of their company anonymously and post their salaries for comparison. It has since expanded its offerings, and it now attracts roughly 50 million visitors per month.
You can claim your company on Glassdoor’s website and create a company profile for free. It’s a good way to build your employer brand. The free version allows you to post basic information about your company and what it does. Glassdoor’s paid plans offer more customization options.
For job listings, Glassdoor sends you to its sister website, Indeed.com, one of the biggest free job-posting sites around for employers and job hunters alike. You can post up to 10 jobs free for seven days. Beyond that, though, you’ll need to pay.
Indeed’s hiring platform helps employers tap into that job board to find qualified candidates who are available. Recruiters can expedite the screening process, automatically moving candidates forward who indicate they meet preset conditions in hiring questionnaires.
Like ZipRecruiter, Indeed lets you pay to bump up the placement of your job posting in search results, and you can create targeted ads to advertise to more qualified candidates.
3. Indeed: Free, But Crowded
Launched in 2004, Indeed is one of the best free job posting sites that also offers paid, premium options to make life easier for job hunters and employers alike.
Because it’s a free job posting site, employers gain access to a diverse candidate pool that’s brimming with talent. And job seekers don’t have to pay to apply for jobs, upload their resume to Indeed’s database, or create job alerts for roles they’re interested in.
For employers, the free features of Indeed take the risk out of testing the waters of the talent pool. But its premium features, such as sponsored job postings and a subscription to Indeed’s resume database, are what really make Indeed useful for employers in their recruiting process.
Employers can post a basic free job posting on Indeed, making it an ideal job posting site for hiring managers who are operating on a budget. But as great as the free option is, that also means the competition is stiff to get your job postings seen. How many other employers are competing for the eyes of qualified candidates? The entire recruitment process depends on your job postings getting seen by the right eyes.
Indeed’s solution to that problem is a paid job posting. For as little as a few bucks a day, employers can post sponsored jobs and make sure the job postings get in front of the most applicants who are job searching. When you pay for a job posting, you can invite people to apply for your job after finding resume matches.
Indeed has a pay-per-click model where pricing is based on user engagement with job postings. The total cost is based on the budget you set and the amount of time you choose to advertise the job posting. Also, 30 resume views per month costs $100, while 100 resume views per month costs $250.
Other top features of Indeed’s job board include company pages, support for HR software like third-party applicant-tracking systems, and Instant Match, a tool that matches candidate resumes to your job ads.
Free solutions for employers include adding screener questions and the ability to message and virtually interview candidates. It’s not possible to repost jobs from other websites onto Indeed.
Indeed also simplifies the screening process by grouping qualified applicants to the top of a dashboard, automatically declining applicants and helping to schedule interviews all within their website.
4. JobSpider: Smaller, But Mostly Free
JobSpider is a smaller free job-posting site that sometimes gets compared to Craigslist.
Employers can post jobs and search through resumes, all for free.
It does charge a fee for one service: The site will accept a batch or bulk import of job openings into its database without you having to manually enter every single free job posting, which can be tedious. It can do this via a few different methods, such as FTP, uploading, email, etc.
The price depends on the number of job postings you want to import and how often you want to import them. Also, prices aren’t listed online. You have to contact the site for prices.
5. Jora: A Global Job Board
Jora is a global job posting site that lists job openings worldwide, including in Australia and Asia. Employers can post up to 10 job openings per month for free. Your free job postings will show up in the site’s search results for 28 days before they expire.
This is a relatively new job board compared to the other free job posting sites on this list. One helpful thing is that it supports third-party applicant-tracking systems. So if your company has an ATS in place, you can use it on Jora.
6. Ladders: For High-End Executive Jobs
Ladders is a high-end corporate recruiting job posting site. It’s for jobs that come with salaries of $100,000 or higher.
With the website’s Basic plan, you get up to 20 free job postings. It also gives you unlimited resume searches for free, which comes in handy.
Like other free job posting sites, Ladders has paid plans that are designed to attract more applicants to your job openings. Its paid plans are called Lite Access ($199 per month), Full Access ($597 per month), and Enterprise (prices vary). These plans make sure your job postings get in front of the most applicants who are job searching.
7. PostJobFree: A Straightforward Option
This is a job posting site whose name explains itself. You can post jobs for free on PostJobFree. You can also search the site’s resume database for free.
However, like all these other free job posting sites, it offers premium services for a fee. You can pay to promote your job listings on other job boards like ZipRecruiter or Indeed.
If you pay a fee, you can promote your jobs and get access to candidates’ contact information. Here are the paid plans and their cost per month:
$29: Two jobs promoted and 30 resume contacts
$59: Six jobs promoted and 100 resume contacts
$99: 15 jobs promoted and 200 resume contacts
$199: 40 jobs promoted and 450 resume contacts
$399: 100 jobs promoted and 1,000 resume contacts
8. SimplyHired: Post Jobs for Free; Pay for Contact Info
SimplyHired is a job search engine that collects job listings and candidate resumes from thousands of free job posting sites. It partners with Indeed. Companies can also post jobs directly on its website.
You can post as many free job listings as you want, and they get distributed to more than 100 job boards. But you have to pay to contact the job candidates you choose to contact.
While many of these other free job posting sites have a pay-per-click model, SimplyHired has a pay-to-contact model. Fees start at $9.99 per candidate contacted.
So, that’s our roundup of the best free job posting sites where you can post openings without paying anything.
After all, why pay for something if you can get it for free?
Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.