7 Things to Know Before Posting Jobs Online
Before publishing a vacancy, make sure you understand the role, the candidate you need, the salary market, the job title candidates will recognise and where those candidates are most likely to search. Getting these decisions right first can make the entire recruitment campaign more focused.
Why should you plan a vacancy before advertising it?
Recruitment problems often begin when important decisions are left until after the vacancy is already live.
If the responsibilities are unclear, the job advert can become vague. If the salary has not been benchmarked, suitable candidates may overlook the role. If nobody has agreed what a good applicant looks like, shortlisting can become inconsistent.
A useful pre-advertising process therefore answers three questions: What does the business need? Who could successfully do it? Where are those people likely to find the vacancy?
Identify what the person will actually be responsible for
Start with the work itself rather than immediately writing a list of qualifications.
Ask the hiring manager what the successful person will actually spend their time doing during a normal week or month.
These answers give you the foundation for both the job advert and the eventual shortlisting process.
“Manage customer accounts” is more useful when accompanied by the outcome expected, such as improving retention, resolving escalations or growing existing accounts.
Separate essential qualifications from helpful ones
Hiring teams can easily turn preferences into requirements. That can unnecessarily reduce the candidate pool.
Must have
- Required licences or registrations
- Qualifications genuinely necessary for the work
- Experience needed to perform core responsibilities
- Skills the employer cannot reasonably train
Helpful, but not essential
- Experience with a particular system
- Previous work in the same sector
- Additional qualifications
- Knowledge that could shorten onboarding
This distinction also makes application review easier because the person assessing candidates knows which criteria should genuinely determine progression.
Decide whether your internal job title is the right advertising title
The title used inside your organisation does not always need to be the title candidates see in the advert.
Internal titles often reflect hierarchy, pay grades or company terminology. Advertising titles need to make sense to people searching externally.
May describe your organisation
Examples could include:
Customer Growth Partner II Grade 6 Technical Officer Client Solutions Specialist BShould describe the job clearly
Candidate-facing alternatives might be:
Account Manager Maintenance Engineer Customer Success ManagerAsk what somebody with the right experience would type into a job search rather than which title appears on your internal organisation chart.
See our complete guide to How to Choose the Right Job Title .
Check the salary expectations for the role, location and experience level
Salary expectations can vary according to the occupation, geographical area, seniority, required experience, working arrangement and level of responsibility.
Before setting the final range, check whether the proposed salary makes sense for the candidate market you are trying to reach.
Check the proposed salary before advertising
Use Career Poster's AI Salary Checker to review the proposed salary against the role, location and experience level.
You may also want to read Should You Include Salary in a Job Advert? .
Agree what a suitable candidate looks like before applications arrive
Shortlisting becomes much more difficult if different people involved in the recruitment process have different ideas about what they are looking for.
Create a simple candidate profile based on evidence that can reasonably be assessed from an application or interview.
What should you define?
What must the person be able to do?
What experience would demonstrate those skills?
Which are essential and which are merely useful?
Location, travel, shift or availability requirements.
What should appear on the CV or application?
What needs to be explored later rather than screened immediately?
Keep the candidate profile focused on requirements that relate directly to performing the role rather than subjective ideas about what the “right type of person” looks like.
Decide which shortlisting questions will actually help
Application questions should help you identify whether somebody meets important requirements that may not be obvious from their CV.
Location or travel
Confirm whether candidates can meet an essential office, travel or geographical requirement.
Licence or qualification
Confirm a qualification or licence where it is genuinely required for the role.
Specific relevant experience
Ask about experience that is important but may be difficult to identify from a job title alone.
Working pattern
Check essential shift, weekend or working-pattern requirements where relevant.
Every compulsory question adds friction to the application process. Ask whether the answer will genuinely affect the decision to shortlist before making a question mandatory.
Work out which job boards your target candidates are likely to use
Different professions and candidate groups can behave differently online. Some vacancies suit large general job boards, while others can benefit from specialist platforms or a combination of channels.
Broad job boards
Useful for roles with a wide candidate market.
Sector job boards
Useful where candidates concentrate around a profession or industry.
Professional platforms
Can help reach experienced or specialist candidates.
Location-focused channels
Can be useful where the candidate market is strongly geographical.
If you want to distribute the same vacancy to several relevant platforms, read How to Post Jobs on Multiple Sites .
Pre-job-posting checklist
Before publishing the vacancy, you should be able to answer all seven of these questions confidently.
The responsibilities and expected outcomes are clear.
Essential and desirable qualifications are separated.
The external advertising title has been agreed.
Role, location and experience level have been considered.
The candidate profile and evidence required are clear.
Only useful shortlisting questions have been selected.
The recruitment-channel mix has been chosen.
Turn the role into a candidate-facing job advert
Once these decisions are agreed, writing the advert becomes much easier. You already know what the role involves, what the candidate needs, how the salary should be positioned and which platforms you want to use.
Advertise your vacancy across multiple job boards
Career Poster lets employers submit a vacancy once and advertise it across multiple recruitment platforms, with applications and recruitment tools available through one employer dashboard.
FAQs about posting jobs online
What should you do before posting a job online?
Define the responsibilities, identify essential and desirable requirements, choose a suitable advertising title, check salary expectations, agree a candidate profile, prepare useful application questions and decide where suitable candidates are likely to search for jobs.
Should you write the job advert before agreeing the candidate profile?
It is usually more useful to agree the role and candidate requirements first. This gives you clearer information to use when writing the advert and makes later shortlisting more consistent.
Should the advertised job title be different from the internal title?
It can be. Internal titles may reflect organisational structure or grading, while the advertising title should clearly describe the role using terminology candidates are likely to recognise.
How do you decide which qualifications are essential?
A qualification should normally be treated as essential only where it is genuinely required to perform the role or satisfy a professional, regulatory or legal requirement.
How should employers decide what salary to advertise?
Consider the occupation, location, level of experience, responsibilities and current candidate market when setting a salary or salary range.
What are good shortlisting questions?
Useful questions confirm important requirements that may not be clear from the CV, such as licences, relevant experience, location, travel or essential working-pattern requirements.
How many application questions should you ask?
Ask only questions that provide information likely to affect the shortlisting decision. Unnecessary compulsory questions add friction without improving candidate assessment.
How do you know which job boards candidates use?
Consider the occupation, industry, location and seniority of the candidate you need. Previous recruitment-source data can also help identify which platforms have produced suitable applicants for similar roles.
