The Challenge:
With so much opportunity in the labor market today, it can be both an exciting but daunting task. With demand for workers at historic levels, also comes intense competition on job boards such as ZipRecruiter and Indeed.
To be competitive in today’s environment, it’s important to make sure you are doing everything possible to optimize your job postings, giving them the best chance to be effective. One of the biggest setbacks we see across the industry – old jobs.
Think from the perspective of an active job seeker. Are you more likely to apply to a job that’s 30+ days old, or a job that was posted just this past weekend? Not only that, but we’ve seen data suggest that you need to pay even more per click to promote older jobs.
Keeping jobs “Fresh” is one tactic you can implement into your job advertising strategy. When you repost the same job but update the job’s posted date, you are keeping the job “Fresh” in the eyes of the job seekers and the job boards.
Solution – Started Keeping Jobs “Fresh”:
When trying to improve your job advertising efforts, a lot of the time you will hear how your budget isn’t large enough – “not enough applies? Increase your budget!”. Our goal at Haley Marketing is to get MORE return on your investment, with the same or even LESS budget!
In the middle of June 2022, we recommended to two clients to keep their jobs “Fresh” by reposting their ads with new posted dates. If you are manually posting to job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter, you may only have to update the jobs’ posted date.
If your company is using a feed to send your jobs to job boards, you will need to ALSO change the job req number of each posting when it is reposted. The job boards’ algorithms are smart enough to identify the initial posted date of each job number, and they will show that as the jobs’ posted date, regardless of what you are inputting into your ATS.
Between our industry knowledge and expertise on the job boards, and the clients’ trust in our team, they were able to create a process for updating jobs’ posted dates and job numbers regularly.
The results were outstanding to say the least.
Results:
| Company #1 | Applies | Clicks | CR% | CPC | CPA | Spend |
| 6/1-6/14 | 782 | 4600 | 17.0% | $0.67 | $3.94 | $3,083 |
| 6/15-6/30 | 1485 | 8095 | 18.3% | $0.34 | $1.86 | $2,755 |
| Company #2 | Applies | Clicks | CR% | CPC | CPA | Spend |
| 6/1-6/14 | 540 | 3488 | 15.5% | $0.89 | $5.78 | $3,119 |
| 6/15-6/30 | 913 | 5091 | 17.9% | $0.54 | $3.03 | $2,770 |
Company #1 (general warehouse staffing) saw 90% more applies, a 7.9% increase in conversion rate, and a 49% decrease in cost-per-click during the second half of June.
Company #2 (HVAC staffing) received 69% more applies, a 15.7% increase in conversion rate, and a 39% decrease in cost-per-click during this time.
You may also notice that both companies actually spent less of their budgets during this time. The main difference that changed? The clients started reposting their jobs with updated posted dates and job numbers!
Here’s a look at one job’s results throughout the month. The only thing that changed throughout the month, the job was staying “Fresh” each time it was reposted:
| Posted Date | Applies | Clicks | CR% | CPC | CPA |
| 6/14/22 | 19 | 202 | 9.4% | $0.15 | $1.61 |
| 6/19/22 | 30 | 268 | 11.2% | $0.10 | $0.91 |
| 6/24/22 | 43 | 255 | 16.9% | $0.10 | $0.58 |
By keeping this job “Fresh”, we were able to increase its conversion rates, decrease its cost-per-click, and drove down cost-per-application for this position by nearly 64%!
Newer jobs generally receive better results on sites like Indeed and ZipRecruiter – like any other search engine, the content is newer and therefore might be shown more often than an older post. By keeping their jobs “Fresh”, our clients were able to reach more job seekers and bring in more applications, all while spending less!
That one change to our strategies led to amazing results! The recruitment marketing industry is competitive for anyone and everyone. In order to get the most out of your advertising budget, you should look at all aspects of your strategy and see what can be improved. It may not be increasing your budget or changing your whole strategy, it could be as simple as making sure your jobs are staying “Fresh”!
Are you ready to learn more about how Haley Marketing and the recruitment marketing team can help drive improved results from your job advertising budget? We offer a FREE brainstorming session with staffing firms to discuss your situation and offer ideas. Feel free reach out to our team to schedule your session any time!
