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.
Are you in need of quality employees? If posting jobs on your company website alone isn’t bringing you the high caliber candidates you’re looking for, it’s time to start utilizing an outside hiring platform.
But figuring out which one of these job sites to go with can be a daunting task on its own. How do you know which one is best for you?
There are some that promote brand awareness, others that are more cost effective and a few that can automate the entire hiring process — from writing the job description to extending an offer. Others focus more on hourly or manual labor, while a few are tailored to Fortune 500 companies.
So, where to begin? We’ll start from the top.
The Best Overall Hiring Platform: ZipRecruiter
ZipRecruiter gets the top spot thanks to its all-around ease of use and success rate. If you want to reach the most potential candidates in a short amount of time, ZipRecruiter is the website for you.
Starting from the beginning, ZipRecruiter offers thousands of templates to help you write an attractive job posting and attract the right candidates. It then scans millions of resumes to find top potential candidates and helps you organize the process with its smart dashboard.
ZipRecruiter uses artificial intelligence to help create job posts, find quality candidates and manage the interview and hiring process from start to finish. Plus, once you post a job, ZipRecruiter will syndicate it to more than 100 different websites, making sure your listing gets in front of the most eyes.
If you want to take it for a test drive, ZipRecruiter offers a four-day free trial before signing up for a monthly membership. There are different levels, starting with a single job posting at a time and going up from there.
Even if you take the lowest-level subscription, you can swap out any job posting for a new one whenever it gets filled. Some websites require you to post jobs in 30-day increments, but ZipRecruiter doesn’t lock you in.
Prices start as low as $16 per day for one reusable job posting and increases based on a number of factors, including industry, resume downloads and number of users you want on your account. But the features that come with the subscription can make the monthly cost worthwhile.
One money-saving tactic for employers using ZipRecruiter is having a reusable job slot. Meaning job posts aren’t locked in for 30 days, and they can be swapped out for another position as soon as the other posting has closed.
Best Hiring Platform for Brand Awareness: Glassdoor
Glassdoor has seen success as a jobs website thanks to its focus on brand awareness. You can claim your company on this job site and create a company profile for free.
When looking to hire for more niche roles, Glassdoor is a great solution for employers looking to showcase their business and company culture. The ability to create a brand that job seekers are interested in can be a huge advantage during the recruiting process.
On your company profile, you can show off your benefits and company culture. Former and current employees can rate the CEO and leave reviews on everything from the hiring process to salaries. Companies utilize these insights that Glassdoor provides to improve employee and interviewee experiences.
With a paid membership, hiring managers can use premium features on Glassdoor like competitor comparisons, branded advertising to get in front of more qualified candidates, and review analysis.
Because Glassdoor’s main focus isn’t the job search, but instead a branding site for companies, there aren’t as many features for recruiters to utilize as there are on a job site like Indeed or ZipRecruiter. There’s no applicant tracking system, nor can employers conduct a resume search.
But in an economy where work/life balance is incredibly important to job seekers, being able to know what kind of company someone is applying for can be a major deciding factor.
Best Hiring Platform for Hourly and Manual Workers: Craigslist
Did you think Craigslist was only for selling used furniture or tracking down a missed connection?
Craigslist is actually an incredibly affordable option for companies to post jobs and find workers without hefty fees or monthly commitments.
There are no subscriptions required, just a flat fee for each job posting. Recruiters don’t even need to create an account to post jobs if they don’t want to.
There are no flashy features, like team collaboration, resume searches or the ability to manage applicants. Job listings won’t be syndicated to 100 other job boards like with ZipRecruiter either. But if a hiring manager knows exactly what they’re looking for, they can upload new job openings to the Craigslist job boards in a matter of minutes.
Employers looking to hire on Craigslist can get an unlimited number of emails from potential candidates, but are unable to search through any sort of resume database to find local candidates themselves.
Craigslist is by far the least expensive option for employers looking to speed up their hiring process. A 30-day job posting costs between $10 and $75, depending on the location. Individual listings can’t be swapped out for new ones — instead, employers will need to create a new posting, but they can post as many jobs as they want at any given time. All they need to do is pay with their credit card for a new listing.
Best Hiring Platform for Maximum Reach: Indeed
Indeed is the largest job-searching website in the world — there are tens of millions of employers posting jobs and hundreds of millions of applicants hoping to find their next role. Its main and only focus is as a job-search engine.
There are more than 70 million monthly users coming to Indeed to search for their next role, twice what Glassdoor has. With such a large audience, it’s a great option for employers to upload free job postings and for applicants to find plenty of job openings.
Employers can post a basic job opening for free on Indeed, making it an ideal platform for hiring managers working on a budget. But as great as the free option is, that also means the competition is stiff to get your job posting seen. How many other employers are competing for the eyes of qualified candidates?
Indeed’s solution to that problem is a paid job post. 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. When you pay for a post, you can invite people to apply for your job after finding resume matches.
Other 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.
Best Easy-to-Use Hiring Platform: Monster
Monster is one of the oldest job search sites, having aided in the job-search process for candidates and the hiring process for recruiters since 1999.
If you’re an employer looking to find candidates, you can post jobs to Monster and search through resumes to find qualified candidates. There is also an opportunity to syndicate open positions to other job boards with certain subscriptions.
Since Monster was one of the first job search websites out there, it seems most employers have posted job listings on there at some point, to help in their recruiting process.
Monster and ZipRecruiter have a lot in common when it comes to their main service, but the key difference is that some features are only available with higher cost plans on Monster. For example, the ability to proactively search through resumes, text and email job seekers or narrow your search parameters can only be used when paying for a Standard or Premium plan.
You can also reuse job postings on Monster instead of having to recreate a new post for additional similar jobs.
Conclusion
Overall, there are plenty of job sites out there that are going to help you find employees, but not all of them are created equal.
That’s why we recommend using ZipRecruiter for your next hire, because it is the most easy to use, with the most reach and many features available at a lower price.
Plus, you’ll get a free four-day trial to make sure it’s up to snuff for your needs. So whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a startup looking to build your team, ZipRecruiter can cover your bases and help make your next great hire.
Kari Faber is a staff 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.