Promoting a Job Posting on LinkedIn—The Only Info-Capsule You Need

LinkedIn enables you to post jobs for free, but the option comes with certain limitations in terms of visibility and the number of applications you can accept. If you’re looking to attract quality candidates for priority roles within a short time, it’s best to use paid job listings—also called promoted jobs—on the platform.

Unlike standard job boards, LinkedIn doesn’t offer a monthly subscription to promote jobs. It has to be done on a per-job basis. Our guide clarifies all issues on the matter, including:

• How to promote a job post on LinkedIn
• What to expect with a promoted LinkedIn job posting
• How to improve visibility for a job post on the platform for free

Protip: How to Post a FREE Job Ad on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Job Posting—How Are Promoted and Free Posts Different?

Whether you’re using a personal or a company page account, you are given one free job posting on LinkedIn. You have to opt for a paid listing if you’re hiring for more than one role at any given time. In case you’re using LinkedIn Recruiter talent solutions (which offers custom-made hiring support features), you can post multiple jobs for free and choose which ones to sponsor.

Free job posts on LinkedIn appear in search results for 30 days, after which, they are tagged as expired and paused. LinkedIn will pause the job post earlier if you receive a certain number of applicants—the cap would vary according to the niche and location you’re hiring for. To resume the visibility of the job post, you must promote it.

Promoted LinkedIn job posts enable you to reach more relevant candidates quickly, attracting up to three times more suitable candidates than free listings. Refer to the following table to go over the difference in features between the two:

You can choose between free and promoted listings while creating the job post or editing it—let’s understand how.

How To Promote a Job on LinkedIn

Promoting a job on Linkedin is done by setting up a daily or overall budget for sponsoring the post. The budget is created on a pay-per-click pricing model—the platform offers you intuitive rates that depend on factors like job title, industry, and geographical location. You can add the budget:

1. While creating a job post
2. After posting the job

How To Create a Promoted Job Post on LinkedIn

Creating any job post on LinkedIn kicks off the same way. You start by adding particulars of the job and are asked to specify if you want a free or promoted listing during the process. Here’s how to post a promoted job on LinkedIn from scratch:

• Log in to your account and go to your homepage
• Click on the Work icon at the top-right corner of your screen

• Select Post a job—If you’re posting a job ad for the first time from a personal account, you’ll be asked to create a job posting account
• Once you’re at the job posting screen, start by entering the basic info for the job

• Click on Start job post
• Write the job description and add relevant skill tags

• Press Continue
• Choose how you’d like to receive applicants on the Applicant Options page

• Add screening questions (optional) and click on Continue to arrive at the job promotion screen
• Review the job promotion rates displayed on the screen
• Choose between Daily or Total budget

• Set an amount for the option selected in Step 11:
  • If you chose the Daily option, you’d be charged the selected amount every day until you pause or close the job ad
  • In case you went with Total, LinkedIn will keep promoting your job listing until the budget is exhausted
• Click on Promote job
• Enter your payment details to checkout

How To Promote an Existing LinkedIn Job Post

If you have an open or paused free job post on LinkedIn, follow the steps below to turn it into a promoted listing:

• Go to your LinkedIn homepage and hit the Jobs tab
• Navigate towards the left pane

• Click on Manage job posts—You’ll be taken to a dashboard with a summarized view of all your current, past, and draft job posts
• Find the job your want to promote
• Select Manage job to edit your listing

• Select any Edit icon displayed in the section
• Press the Continue button until you reach the job promotion screen
• Refer to the tailored rate predictions on the screen to select a Daily or Total promotional budget

• Click on Promote job and complete the payment

If you choose a Daily budget, you’ll start accruing the set amount every day, and if you go for a Total budget, LinkedIn will let you know for how long the listing will be promoted. You can revisit the dashboard anytime to:

• Increase or decrease the budget of a promoted post
• Close or pause the job (even when you’re yet to exhaust the budget)

LinkedIn often offers new job posters an option to promote jobs for free for about three days. It’s essentially a free trial, and you still have to enter your credit card info to qualify for the benefit.

When Does LinkedIn Bill a User for Promoted Listings?

LinkedIn follows a 30-day billing cycle that’s calculated from the first day you promote a job on the online platform. If you promote more jobs during the period, the established billing date will be applied to the rest of the posts. As of now, the only way to reset your billing cycle is to close all jobs and post a new promoted listing on a strategic date.

You will be billed within 24 hours in two situations, explained in the following table:

You can change your default payment method anytime before the billing date—the option can be found on the right pane of your Manage job posts dashboard.

What Is the Ideal Duration To Promote a Job Posting on LinkedIn?

The ideal promotion duration for a LinkedIn job post depends on:

1. Industry factors—Industry factors include the number of professionals in a specified geographical location, the difficulty in finding experts, and similar aspects. LinkedIn already takes industry factors into account while suggesting a per-click job promotion rate and a recommended duration. If the recommended duration is out of your budget, try promoting it for at least 5–7 days
2. Hiring strategies—Recruiters with a proactive hiring plan are able to find suitable candidates and wrap up the job promotion pretty quickly. The best strategies include:
   1. Writing a concise and attractive job description
   2. Monitoring and managing received applications daily
   3. Testing all promising candidates

Many successful hiring managers use third-party platforms like Workello to test applicants and predict their on-the-job performance. Workello allows you to streamline and create a hiring funnel, evaluate applicants, and set up interviews in record time. You’re able to hire faster, which automatically brings down your job promotion budget.

How To Boost a Job Post on LinkedIn for Free

Promoting a LinkedIn job post using paid services is not the only way to boost its visibility. Being a high-traffic networking platform, the site enables you to drive attention towards a job post (paid or free) by sharing it to:

• Your network—Sharing a job post as a status update makes it visible to your followers or connections. Engagement on such posts further increases its organic reach, helping you attract both active and passive jobseekers from a massive network pool. Once you post your vacancy as a status update, you can also use the Boost button (a paid service) to improve its reach. There are two ways to share a job post to your network:
  • Access the job from your hiring dashboard and use the Share in a post option
  • Start a new post from your homepage—click on Share that you’re hiring and follow the prompts

• Target LinkedIn Groups—LinkedIn Groups contain members from a particular industry or interest, such as digital marketing, data analytics, or product management. Join a group that’s relevant to your vacancy and share a link to your job post with its members to attract niche talent. Keep in mind that many admins of LinkedIn Groups may limit page activities to professional discussions only, so make sure to read their policy/rules before posting

LinkedIn Job Post Promotion—FAQs

We have answered some common queries about job promotion on LinkedIn.

How Are Clicks for Promoted LinkedIn Job Posts Calculated?

LinkedIn only charges you for the clicks your sponsored job post gets within a particular country. A U.S. job post will strictly be billed for clicks within the country. The only exception is when you’ve specified your job location as European Economic Area (EEA). In that case, clicks from all countries within the area will be billed.

Here are some other important aspects of the job-click calculation on LinkedIn:

• The clicks are metered on a per-user basis—so the same user clicking through the job post 10 times would still be counted as one click
• Clicks from the job poster and LinkedIn employees are disregarded
• The click-counter of promoted jobs with a per-day budget resets at 12 a.m. UTC daily

What Happens When You Change Your Daily Job Posting Budget on LinkedIn?

Changing the daily job posting budget can be confusing because of the variance in rates. According to LinkedIn, you will be charged the highest daily rate on the day you make the change. Say you change your daily job promotion budget from $10 to $20 during the day, but if you bring it down to $15 by evening—you’ll be paying $20 on that day and $15 from the next day onwards.

How To Turn Off Promotions for a LinkedIn Job Post

You can stop promoting a LinkedIn job post by closing or pausing the job—the option can be accessed on your dashboard. If you want to turn the promoted job into a free listing, you need to choose the Manage job option for that post.

Once you get a detailed view of the job, use the edit button to navigate to the job promotion page and choose the free posting option. Remember that you can only have one free listing at a time unless you’re using LinkedIn Recruiter services.

What Other Job Boards Are Excellent for Promoting Jobs?

If you’re not too impressed with the talent you attract on LinkedIn, check out other platforms that provide quality exposure to your job. Here are some of our best picks:

• Indeed
• Google Jobs
• Mashable
• Monster
• Facebook
• CareerBuilder
• Craigslist
• Dice
• ZipRecruiter
• Ladders
• Juju
• Careerjet
• Snagajob

Many of these websites have monthly subscription options offering multiple job slots. Such plans are more convenient if you want to post jobs in bulk at fixed rates, which is something LinkedIn doesn’t offer.