Importance of keeping a job post for at least 60 days alive

Searching for a dream job that matches our skills and qualifications can be quite tiring and a stressful process. Applying to dozens of job postings daily can make even the most energetic and persistent person feel exhausted and feel that sending applications constantly is pointless.

The stress can be triggered also if you find a perfect job post, but the application date expires in two or three days and you don’t have enough time to prepare your perfect application and impress the hiring manager. All in all, many job seekers struggle dealing with all the stress which follows the job hunt.

Where to look for a job?

Despite being very annoying we cannot say that a search for a job is very simplified by the new technologies. We can easily get insight in all the jobs that match our qualifications and experience simply choosing the right filters. 

According to the Open University research from 2019, 79% of job seekers say that they are likely to use social media in their job search and this increases to 86% for younger job seekers. Nobody buys advertisement papers and loses time browsing pages with different job ads. In 2017 Jobvite 2017 Recruiting Funnel Benchmark did a report which shows that top five sources from which applications are being coming are:

○  Job Boards – 52.17%

○  Career Sites – 33.90%

○  Referrals – 3.07%

○  Internal Hire – 2.26%

○  Agency – 1.76%

In order to receive applications for a job, there has to be a job posting which will reach many talented and job searching people. Job post is also known as a job ad and it is an advertisement that a company publishes online in order to find new employees and fill in some existing vacancies and available positions. Job posts are there to make or break the impression about the company, they are those who boost the image of a company and attract potential candidates. 

There are two types of job postings, they can be internal and external. The internal job posts circulate inside the company and are shared only among employees. These kinds of job posts allow employees to switch departments and change their existing job roles or just apply for a higher position.

From the already mentioned Jobvite 2017 Recruiting Funnel Benchmark Report we can see that internal hiring is six times more effective than all other sources of hiring. On the other hand, there are external job posts which are available to all job seekers and people from outside can also apply. 

Job posts that attract people 

In order to intrigue a lot of qualified applicants, job posting needs to be well crafted. Well crafted job post is the one that sells the job position to potential applicants. It has to be catchy and alluring enough to draw an applicant’s attention in a few minutes.

Based on Ladders’ research, 44% of job seekers said they spent between one and five minutes reviewing a job posting. This eye-tracking study also analyzed how job seekers read and evaluate job listings. They concluded that in reality, job seekers usually spend between 49.2 and 76.7 seconds reviewing job postings and deciding whether they should apply for it or not. That’s definitely not long enough.

As already mentioned, job posts have to be interesting and intriguing enough to catch the attention of job seekers and to make them apply for a job, so special attention should be put in the process of writing a job posting. 

Job posts must include information such as:

• a concise summary of what the job duties will be, 
• what are expectations from the candidate, 
• what kind of qualifications and experience is required, 
• minimum to both qualifications and experience, this will make it more clear to candidates applying for the job. 

Besides information that is candidate related, there should also be information about the company and its work culture. Those are:

• is it a full-time or part-time position,
• is it onsite or a remote position,
• information about benefits and salary,
• and of course you have application requirements, whether the application requires a cover letter, resume or portfolio, or all three,
• in the end there should be a preferred method of applying, which can be directly through a job search website or by contacting a hiring manager directly.

Job posts are more reliable if there are the contact details of a hiring manager. 

Keeping a job post alive

We already said that job hunting can last a longer period of time, so it is very important to pay attention when the job was posted. Some posts are recent, but there are some job ads that can be as old as 90 days. The life of a job post online depends on many different factors. Some of them are: the urgency of a position to be filled, the quality of candidates who have applied, but also on the length of the interviewing process. 

Typical lifespan of a job post is 30 days, but it can depend on the company, industry and its employment rate and how difficult it is to fill advertised positions. Usually positions that require more specialized skills and more experience are more difficult to be filled, jobs for positions such as management or supervisor. 

It can be a bit suspicious when a job post is older than 30 days, because job posts usually get filled by that time; Brazen found that 43% of job openings are filled during the first 30 days, but don’t let this fool you.

The reason for a job post being active after 30 days is because it is too difficult to find a suitable candidate for the job, there are few applications or maybe the hiring manager just forgot to close the job post.

On the other side, some companies don’t take down the job post before it expires even though the position is filled. Flexjobs found that 57% of job postings may still be active after a month. This means that some job search sites require companies to renew the job post.

Even though the life of a job post varies from the open position and the budget company is determined to spend for advertising the job post we would like to emphasize that it is important for a job post to be at least 60 days alive. If the job post is alive for more than 30 days it will gain more traction, meaning you will get more high quality candidates. 

Finding the perfect candidate

According to the 2017 Recruiter Sentiment Study done by MRI Network, 63% of recruiters say talent shortage is their biggest problem. Also, you will have more time to conduct the interviews and with that choose the best one. This can be beneficial especially for smaller companies, as they can have candidates leaving the reviews on the interviewing process and with that attract more candidates. 

The reasons why job posting has a closing date are quite obvious. First and foremost, it is because of a limited budget, especially because sometimes companies post on different job search websites, so it can be expensive to advertise it for a long time on different websites. Also, some job search websites enforce the closing dates, so companies have to declare it. 

Many times companies are those that have the deadline and specific date until when a position has to be filled so they need to put a closing date. The last reason why job postings have a closing date is because companies don’t want to be overwhelmed with applications.

This can be a problem if you are a hiring manager in a corporation; on average, each corporate job offer attracts 250 resumes. And after you have to review all those candidates, of which 4 to 6 will get called for an interview, and only one will get the job.

The process of deciding which are the best candidates can be simplified by using video interviews. They allow you to meet candidates before interviewing them. Anomadic remote job platform is offering this unique service to all employers who are looking for employees. 

Although job posts can be active more than 30 days, it is important to apply for the position in the early age of job posting because with that you can enhance your chances of getting the job.

The rule of thumb is that the earlier you apply, it is easier for the hiring manager to notice your application. So, it is the best to apply for a job within a week or two since the job post was posted. And it is definitely not advisable to apply for a job post after the closing date; that position has probably already been filled and the job is not available anymore. 

The conclusion is that having a well tailored and attractive job post alive for a longer period of time, the probability of getting more applications and having a wider choice of candidates for filling up the position is higher. And it gives you more time for conducting the selection process. 

Usually the earliest applications are those people who apply to any job. They don’t take time to make an impressive application and their skills remotely match with the job description. But after some time you get high quality applications. And applicants whose skills and qualifications fit the job role.

This is probably because those people are not active job seekers and don’t search for a job as frequent as everyday. In addition to this, they are probably more judicious and pickier when applying for a job.   

Anomadic remote-only job platform allows you to get a wide range of talented people. Anomadic keeps all job posts alive for at least 60 days. This gives you enough time to select a perfect candidate that matches job requirements.