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Help/FAQs: Job Posting

How much do job postings cost when I buy them through JobScore?

We do our best to offer job postings at the lowest possible price.  Some job boards have different prices for different geographies (i.e. Craigslist costs $85 in San Francisco and $10 in Albuquerque) – below we list the most expensive prices for each job board.  These are our current prices and they are subject to change at any time:

24/7 Wall St. $150 37signals $330 43 Folders $90 6FigureJobs $375
Ajaxian $100 Alt Search Engines $52 CareerBuilder $419 CareerJournal $412
Craigslist $85 DevBistro $10 Dice $459 DotOrgJobs $36
GigaOM $220 Grist $31 HotJobs $400 Indeed Free
Infectious Greed $52 InhouseBlog.com $52 Joel on Software $385 LinkedIn $130
Marketing Pilgrim $50 mocoNews $300 Monster $350 NYSIA $75
Oodle Free paidContent $300 Read/WriteWeb $99 SFist $31
SimplyHired FREE SQLServerCentral.com $100 Seeking Alpha $150 Silicon Alley Insider $99
Software by Rob $36 SourceForge $400 Startupers $10 TechCrunch $200
TechEBlog $25 The Alarm Clock $75 Tom's Hardware $200 VBCode $100
Wall Street Reporter $149 WiMax.com $200 Zend $10 Slashdot /
Linux.com /
IT Managers Journal /
Freshmeat /
NewsForge		 $400

Writing great job descriptions

Job descriptions are marketing documents, and writing great ones is an art and not a science. Great job descriptions help the job seeker "imagine" what it will be like to work at your company and inspire them to apply. Job are sales pitches, not laundry lists of the skills you would like someone to have. Like other advertisements, your response will be proportionate to the quality of your message (job description) and your ability to reach your audience (market the job).

The hallmark of a successful job description is that when someone reads it they either want to apply for the job themselves, or they enthusiastically recommend it to a friend. Great job descriptions cause people to want to act.

Most great job descriptions, like most great advertisements, are short. job seekers have a limited attention span. The purpose of your job description is to "hook" them so that they spend more time investigating your company and apply. No matter how much information you put in your job description, interested applicants are likely to do research elsewhere: looking at your website, reading about your company and leaders in the press, etc. So, don't feel pressure to get tons of information into your job descriptions, focus on writing descriptions that cause job seekers to want to learn more.

Make sure you don't write your job description from scratch! Start by searching around some of the major job boards for positions similar to the one you are trying to fill and don't hesitate to incorporate (read: steal) the best things you find in descriptions from other companies into your own. But don't do this too much! the uniqueness of your job description is often what drives great people to take action.

Start with information about your company:

Most people who read your job description don't know who you are or what you do. Ideally in as little as two sentences you should cover some of the "highlights" of why someone might want to work for your company:

    1. Describe what industry you are in, and what your company / product does
    2. Information about the work environment (closed office, cubicle, open floor plan, nerf balls flying around, library like, etc.)
    3. your mission / where you are going
    4. some relevant statistics about your success and/or market position
    5. how big you are (number of employees, revenue, years in business, etc)
    6. veteran leadership
    7. values: fast growth, stability, family values - whatever is consistently important to your company

One of the easiest ways to share information about your company is to create a world class careers site with text, pictures and videos that show your work environment and showcase the people on your team. You are never going to be able to get all of the information about what makes your company unique into a concise job description, so you should put it somewhere else for those who are interested. If you do this make sure to include a link to this page in all of your job descriptions!

Include some "big picture" information about the job itself:

Why the is job open: if it's for a good reason (i.e. growth, someone was promoted) definitely say so

Opportunity: Are you going to train them? do they get work with a great boss? Will they develop leading edge skills? work with great people? Why should they want this job?

Lifestyle: How many hours will they need to work? Will they have to travel? Will they need to manage other people? What are their days going to be like doing this job?

Team style: What are the common attributes of the top performers on your team? Make sure to include these adjectives in the description of who you are looking for.

Job Responsibilities:

List the things that this person is going to do on a day-to-day basis. Think in terms of specific, discreet tasks that the person will do in this job. This should help them visualize what they'll be doing all day long if they take the job. Don't hesitate to list some of the more exciting and interesting things they'll be asked to do, but don't fib/exaggerate.

Job Requirements:

This is not a laundry list of things you'd like someone to know. Try to keep it to under 4 one sentence bullet points that describe the absolute bare minimum requirements for the position. Think of these as "knock-out" criteria. These are the "if you don't have these things, please don't apply" criteria. For instance, for an administrative assistant you'd probably want them to be personable, organized and have a can-do attitude much more than have 10+ years of administrative assistant experience working for other executives. Rank your job requirements, listing the most important criteria first.

Nice to Have:

This is the laundry list of things you'd like someone to know. You should have no more than 10 bullet points describing things that it would be great if the person had experience doing. Rank these nice to haves, listing the most important criteria first. This list should take up less than 1/3rd of the job description.

Keywords:

Don't forget your keywords. Most job seekers look for jobs on job boards using keyword searches. don't get too fancy with you job titles or omit too many of the most obvious buzzwords as this is how many job seekers will find you.

Focus on the first few sections of the job - who you are and why this job is great, not the laundry list of what the ideal candidate has done in the past. Remember, the purpose of job descriptions is to get people excited and to get them to apply, not to discourage them and make them think they aren't qualified!

If I already have accounts and inventory on some job boards, can I still use JobScore?

Yes!  Each job in JobScore has a unique URL. If you already have inventory, keep posting jobs the way you do now, but instead of routing applications to your e-mail address (i.e. jobs@yourcompany.com), please ask candidates to "apply over the web" and copy and paste the unique JobScore URL for your job into your postings. This way your applicants are routed directly into JobScore.

Unfortunately, if you don't purchase postings through JobScore, you can't get the full source-tracking benefits of one-click posting. We recommend that once you've used up your pre-purchased inventory that you switch over and start purchasing postings through JobScore.

How can I tell if my job postings are working?

Some postings take as much as a full day to show up on a job board. Visit the job board the day after you post to check if the job is posted and search for your job.  Another way to check is to visit the View Job: Job Boards page and see if any “views” are showing up for your postings. If your jobs aren't showing up after 24 hours, please email support@jobscore.com and we'll see what we can do.

Can I still get tracking data for my job postings if I don't buy them through JobScore?

Unfortunately, no. The data we collect on job views and applications is tracked based on unique tags that we include on the postings we distribute. To get all of the benefits of our tracking data, you'll need to purchase your postings through JobScore.

How do I edit my job posting once it's been published on different job boards?

Unfortunately, you can't do this through JobScore. Each job board has unique rules about editing job postings, so you must edit each of your postings individually. In addition, some job boards don't allow you to edit your postings at all. For the job boards that do allow you to edit your postings, we route the posting receipts (which include the link to edit your postings) to the e-mail you entered in your billing information. Please contact the owner of this email address to get the link to edit your posting.

Because of these difficulties, we encourage you to closely review and edit your job advertisements before posting them to job boards. The best practice we suggest is first put the job posting on your careers site for your team to review. Once they have reviewed and signed off that the ad looks good & that they'd refer it to their friends, then publish it on job boards.

If you are having a lot of trouble with editing job postings go ahead and e-mail us and we'll do what we can.

Will you send me an invoice for the Job postings I buy using JobScore?

No. We don't send invoices ...JobScore helps you buy job postings directly from job boards using the credit card information you provide. Your credit card statement includes charges directly from the job boards you post to, as well as from our job syndication partner SmashFly, which sometimes charges a small fee to post your jobs.

If you want to see what the total expenses are for posting a particular job, please visit the View Job page and click the Job Boards tab in the secondary navigation. You'll see a report of all postings you've made using JobScore including the total cost. This total includes fees paid directly to the job boards as well as to SmashFly.

Will JobScore send me a confirmation when my jobs are posted?

No. We don't send posting confirmations. However, you may receive confirmations directly from the job boards, as most send out email confirmations when jobs are posted. These confirmations are sent to the e-mail address you entered on your Billing Information page.

Can I post a job in more than one category on a specific job board?

Usually:

  • Some job boards, like Monster, allow you to select a few different categories when you post...you can enter this information directly on the Post Job page when you select the board.
  • Other job boards, like Craigslist, require you to purchase additional postings to list your job in separate categories. In these cases, you must post the job multiple times to list it in multiple categories. After you post your job in the first category, go back to the Post Job page, click the "re-post" link next to that job board, select a new category and click "update" -- your job will be posted again in the new category. If you want to post it in three or more categories just keep repeating these steps.

Please don't hesitate to e-mail us if you are having trouble posting to multiple job categories.

Can I re-post a job?

By default, you can re-post to a job board once your original posting has expired, which is after 30 days for most boards. Once the posting has expired just go back to the Post Job page and check the "post" box to post it again.

Based on customer demand, we now support job re-posting jobs to Craigslist before the posting expires. After you post a job to Craigslist if you return to the Post Job page you'll see a "re-post" link which allows you to post the job again. When you re-post a job to Craigslist, your old posting will not be removed, your listing will just show up twice.

Please don't hesitate to e-mail us if you are having trouble re-posting jobs through JobScore

Can I refresh my job postings using JobScore?

Sorry, we don't support refreshing jobs at this time.

Can I purchase job postings that last more than thirty days?

Sorry, at this time we only sell 30 day postings, even if the job board offers options for longer posting lengths.

Can JobScore keep track of my job posting expenses for postings that I make outside of JobScore?

Sorry, we can't.

Who is SmashFly and what do they have to do with JobScore?

SmashFly is a partner company to JobScore. They provide a job posting API that we use to distribute your jobs to job boards all over the web.

How do I add specific JobScore URLs to my job postings?

It's easy - just follow these steps:

  1. Make sure that you've added the job board to your Custom Job Boards list (so you can track applicant traffic from the source.)
  2. Copy the 'apply url' found on the View Job page and paste it into your job posting.
  3. Make sure not to include your e-mail address in job postings (JobScore doesn't accept applications via e-mail) so that all applications flow directly to your careers site.

 

 

If you can't find what you are looking for here, please feel free to e-mail us at support@jobscore.com or drop us a call at 415-904-9900. Please post suggestions for additional help topics in the JobScore Forums.