How To Hire on Ladders—Free Job Posting, Pricing, and Other Highlights [With FAQs]

Ladders (also called The Ladders) is an online job board headquartered in New York City that helps employers find experienced and high-value professionals from any industry in the U.S. and Canada. Note that the term “high-value” is quite literal in this case. Ladders stands out among other job boards because the platform only allows posting vacancies for positions that pay over $100,000 annually—but how useful is the platform to recruiters, especially those looking to post jobs for free?

Our walkthrough will help you figure out all aspects of recruiting professionals on Ladders. We’ll discuss the job board’s:

1. Features
2. Pricing
3. Procedure for posting jobs

We have also compared the platform with competitor job boards to evaluate whether it provides value for money and answer your top queries about Ladders.

An Overview of Ladders

Ladders brands itself as a complete hiring solution for companies looking to recruit highly qualified and experienced candidates. Over 90% of the jobseekers on the platform have a Bachelor’s degree, more than 45 have a Master’s degree or higher, and over 75% are backed with more than 15 years of work experience. 

Ladders attracts around 2 million visitors each month, distributed in the following age groups:

Ladders’ services are used by over 25,000 employers, most of them being big and mid-sized firms advertising mid- or upper-management roles. Some of Ladders’ prominent customers include Hallmark, Toyota, and Teach for America.

The site offers both free and paid options to list jobs. You can also go for sponsored listings if you’re hiring urgently. Ladders provides options to view resumes, filter candidates, and access contact information on paid plans.

One of Ladders’ distinguishing features is its Third Page™ product. The Ladders Third Page offers insights on candidates beyond their resumes, which helps employers evaluate their overall fit in the company’s work culture.

Being a feature-packed job board exclusively for high-paying roles, we looked at its customer reviews to assess its overall service. Unfortunately, Ladders has poor customer ratings. Employers often complain about not getting quality customer support, while jobseekers mention that the website tends to spam them with irrelevant ads and inactive jobs.

We have also noticed unverified claims on Reddit about the company selling user data.

Features and Highlights—What To Expect With Ladders?

Refer to the following table to get the complete picture of the recruitment-friendly features on Ladders:

Ladders Job Posting Cost—Free and Monthly Plans

Ladders offers four types of recruiter plans:

1. Basic—The Basic plan is free for every recruiter and allows 10 job posts and 10 resume views a month
2. Life Access—The Life Access plan costs $159 per month and lets you post 50 jobs, view 50 resumes, and access other features like email promotions, candidate contacts, and support from a dedicated account manager
3. Full Access—The Full Access plan ($499 per month) has a limit of 500 job posts and 500 candidate views. It offers everything under the Life Access plan plus the additional benefits of using advanced search filters and previewing resumes during search (without opening a new tab)
4. Enterprise—The Enterprise plan can be tailored to your hiring needs and offers features like live job feeds and adding more admins to your user account

Besides monthly plans, Ladders also offers a separate option to sponsor a specific job post for $397. You can get a bird’s-eye view of Ladders’ pricing below:

Ladders provides another product called CityHire that enables recruiters to reach out to multiple jobseekers in a particular city. The pricing details are not available on the website, so you need to contact sales@theladders.com for more info.

The Ladders Job Posting Mechanism—User Experience

Posting a job on Ladders for the first time isn’t straightforward for two reasons:

1. Account verification can be slow—Being an elite-only job board, Ladders takes time to vet every new employer who signs up. The process is said to take three hours, but many accounts may have to wait longer to get approved. You’re completely locked out of the employer dashboard during the verification process

1. Jobs are verified before publishing—Ladders follows strict criteria when it comes to posting jobs. Your job post request will be pending while the site moderators review it for compensation offered and work location. Commission-based, part-time, freelancing, or contract-based roles are usually rejected. Issueless job requests typically go live within 30 minutes, but the wait time is longer on holidays and weekends

How To Post Jobs on Ladders

The following steps will guide you through the signup and job posting process on Ladders:

1. Go to the homepage of Ladders and click on For Employers at the top-left corner of the screen

1. Enter your basic details in the Hire top talent now section

1. Provide your company name, size, and similar details 

1. Log in to your company email account to click on the verification link
2. Wait for Ladders’ management to approve your account
3. Once your account is verified, log in to access your employer dashboard
4. Click on Post a Job in the center of the dashboard

1. Fill up all the fields of the job post—keep in mind that:
   1. Your job should belong to one of the following fields:
      1. Accounting & Finance
      2. Engineering & Construction
      3. Healthcare
      4. Human Resources & Legal
      5. Marketing, Media & Design
      6. Operations Management
      7. Project, Product & Program Management
      8. Sales & Business Development
      9. Science & Education
      10. Technology
   2. The job description must have:
      1. 100 words minimum
      2. 5,000 characters maximum

1. Post the job and wait for it to be approved and made live
2. Visit your dashboard anytime to check analytics, applicants, etc.
3. Use the Manage Jobs tab to add or delete job posts

1. Access the Search tab at the top of the screen to look for candidates manually

If you want a paid job posting, use the Products tab or navigate to your account options (click on the arrow beside your name at the top-left corner of the screen) to make purchases.

While the job posting process is simple, getting approval for every job you post can be mildly frustrating.

Ladders Job Posting Website vs. Competitors

If we’re talking functionality, the main reason why hirers go on Ladders is to find experienced candidates for high-stake roles. By that criteria, the most significant competitors of the job board are:

1. LinkedIn
2. Indeed
3. 100KCrossing

Ladders vs. LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become an excellent platform for finding executive or senior-level professionals. The site attracts both active and passive jobseekers. Employers can go through prospective candidates’ profiles and learn about their skills, qualifications, employment history, and overall suitability for a role, which is essentially what Ladders tries to achieve with its Third Page feature.

Check out the comparison of prominent features between Ladders and LinkedIn:

LinkedIn seems like a better choice for finding skilled professionals than Ladders because the former offers job postings without the headache of approvals and has candidate-matching features. That being said, Ladders offers excellent city-centric job promotions, so it may be a more convenient choice if you want to hire from a particular area in the U.S. or Canada.

Ladders vs. Indeed

Similar to LinkedIn, Indeed also attracts jobseekers from around the world. Check out how Ladders fares against Indeed:

Indeed’s unlimited free job posting plan and affordable sponsored listings make it a great option to attract bulk applicants within a geographical area fast. Ladders may be more expensive, but it gives you a smaller pool of candidates to choose from, which can be preferable if you’re looking for quick hiring.

Ladders vs. 100KCrossing

100KCrossing is a sister job board of EmploymentCrossing, a company providing job aggregation services. Like Ladders, 100KCrossing allows you to post for roles that pay $100,000 or more annually. The site mainly attracts jobseekers from the U.S. Here’s a comparison of the platforms:

Ladders and 100KCrossing have their own pros and cons, but 100KCrossing definitely offers more visibility to job posts due to multi-network distribution. Another distinguishing aspect of 100KCrossing is that the platform explicitly mentions never to give out, lease, or sell your personal information.

Frequently Asked Questions About Ladders

We have compiled answers to common queries about Ladders in this section.

How Much Does It Cost To Post a Job on Ladders?

Posting a job on Ladders can be done for free, or you can choose one of their paid plans starting at $159 per month. Featured listings cost $397 per job.

Does Ladders Allow Posting of Jobs Offering Less Than $100,000?

Surprisingly, yes! You can put the salary bar as low as $80,000 per year while posting a job on Ladders. Remember that jobseekers on the website have a median annual income of $154,000, so listings offering low salaries won’t get many clicks.

Are Jobs on Ladders Visible To Everyone?

The Ladders job board is only visible to registered jobseekers on the website. If you want heavy attention for a listing, it’s better to go for websites that allow multi-network distribution or public access to their job boards.

Are All Candidates on Ladders Actively Looking for Jobs?

No, many candidates on Ladders are passive jobseekers. They create free accounts on Ladders and barely ever check the job board. Such candidates can be contacted if you go for the Full Access plan. While browsing candidate profiles on the platform, check the Last Update or Last Active section to see when they were last looking for work actively.

What To Do if My Employer Account or Job Post Request Is Rejected?

It’s common for Ladders to reject company profiles or job post requests that don’t meet their criteria. If you think your applicant or request was unduly rejected, reach out to Ladders’ support staff—you can mail them at approvals@theladders.com or call 1-866-800-4640 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Eastern Time).

What Are Some Alternatives to Ladders?

There are various quality job boards meeting all kinds of hiring needs. Check out our best picks below: 

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