The Best Places for Employers to Post Jobs for Free

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.

Also, at the end, we’re adding a few job posting sites that employers have to pay to use. These are useful job boards if you have a little recruiting money.

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. Lots of online job boards operate that way.

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 free job-posting 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 job boards 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 openings premium placement on job boards. There’s also a “traffic boost” option that allows you to send out job listings 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 alerts to job seekers 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

Like several of the best free job-posting sites, Glassdoor is free for a limited amount of time. It’s 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 job seekers.

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.

If free job postings aren’t enough, 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 post, 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. Each free job posting will show up in the site’s search results for 28 days before it expires.

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 free 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 each job post 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.

Paid Job-Posting Sites

Maybe you have a recruiting budget to hire new workers. In that case, you don’t have to just stick with the free job posting sites. You can also post jobs to the paid job boards.

Here are a few prominent pay-to-use job boards, along with their prices.

1. Monster: Simple to Use

Monster delivers many of the same core features as other job boards. For many recruiters and employers, its standout feature is simplicity.

It’s easy to post jobs here. You can choose from more than 2,000 templates to build your job ad. You can also let Monster suggest candidates for your company’s open positions based on factors you specify: skills, location, experience and more.

Monster has its own applicant tracking system to help manage your recruitment campaign. If you want to use your chosen ATS instead, you’ll need to choose different job boards.

Monster offers a library of training content to empower hiring managers and recruiters to make the most of the site’s tools and features. Plus, the company offers customer support by phone or email during business hours in case you get stuck.

Monster also has a native applicant tracking system to help you manage the traction your job ads may get. However, the site offers no support for third-party tracking systems, which could be more than a minor headache if your company already has a relationship with recruitment software vendors.

Monster’s Prices

Unlike the best free job posting sites, Monster has three tiers of membership for employers who are looking for job seekers, with the more expensive tiers offering more tools and options.

Monster’s monthly subscription starts at $279 for a single job posting and increases based on the number of active job openings and the ability to send them to other job boards with their Performance Boost capability. Monster also has the ability to post ads on the job site, so an employer only pays when someone views their job listing.

• $279: Starter package includes one slot for a job posting, 50 resume views per month
• $399: Standard package includes three job slots, placement on partner sites for 30 days, ability to view 150 resumes per month
• $649: Premium package includes five slots, placement on partner sites for 30 days, 250 resume views monthly

2. CareerBuilder: A Boutique Recruitment Solution

CareerBuilder is a job posting site that leverages a mix of custom tools, analytics, third-party software integration and flexible payment options to help employers find qualified candidates.

CareerBuilder.com sees about 8.5 million U.S. users monthly and provides access to about 80 million candidate resumes.

The site offers employers access to over 80 million resumes and social media profiles. Like ZipRecruiter, it can share job postings with other job boards around the internet (although to a lesser extent).

There are hiring solutions for companies of all sizes, from small businesses up to enterprise organizations. You can choose one of its tiered, full-service packages or build your own by picking the number of job ads and monthly resume searches you want.

CareerBuilder offers a large database of resumes, access to linked social profiles, support for a host of third-party applicant tracking systems, automated emails and instrumental add-ons like candidate sourcing.

However, it limits the number of resumes you can view monthly, while sites like ZipRecruiter offer unlimited views to make it easier to find the best candidates.

Helpful solutions, like CareerBuilder’s candidate-screening service, “Source and Screen,” can enhance your recruitment campaign with candidate screening, job-post promotion, scheduling and branding.

CareerBuilder’s Prices:

Unlike free job posting sites, Monster has three tiers of membership for employers who are looking for job candidates, with the more expensive tiers offering more tools and options. It also offers a custom “Build Your Own” package.

• $219: “Lite” package includes one job ad, 500 resume database searches, alerts and custom candidate lists.
• $299: Standard package includes three job postings, 500 resume searches, alerts and custom candidate lists.
• $599: Pro package includes five job postings, 500 searches, alerts and custom candidate lists.
• $375: “Build Your Own” package starts with one job posting and 30 days of resume search access.

3. Craigslist: a No-Frills Experience

This isn’t one of the free job posting sites, but it’s close.

Founded in 1995, Craigslist is best known for being a classified-ads marketplace where people can find nearly anything — furniture, rooms to rent, missed connections and even legal help.

But a major portion of Craigslist’s business is as one of the top job posting sites where people can find part-time work, manual labor, side gigs and more.

Craigslist Jobs is a cost-effective solution for employers wanting to post jobs. There are no subscriptions required, just a flat fee for each job posting. You don’t even need to create an account to post jobs if you don’t want to.

Employers looking to hire via Craigslist can get an unlimited number of emails from potential candidates. On the downside, you won’t be able to search through any sort of resume database to find qualified local candidates.

Free job posting sites are handy, but employers on a small budget will also benefit from Craigslist’s affordability. For as little as $10 each, you can post as many jobs as you want — but you’ll have to do a lot more leg work when it comes to sorting through unqualified applicants and manually handling the entire hiring process.

However, you should understand that Craigslist job postings are strictly a no-frills experience. You go without flashy features like resume searches or the ability to manage applicants. There is no candidate relationship management system of any kind.

Craigslist’s Prices

Unlike free job posting sites, a 30-day job posting on Craigslist 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 you need to do is pay with your credit card for a new listing.

In Conclusion

So, that’s our roundup of the best free job posting sites, and the most prominent pay sites.

Looking to hire? You have many options.

Mike Brassfield ([email protected]) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.