What is a job post?

A job post is an advertisement for an open role. It’s also a job seeker’s first impression of your company.

It often includes a summary of the role and company, an overview of duties and responsibilities, required qualifications (e.g., skills, education, years of experience), benefits/perks, whether it’s a full-time, part-time or contract position and other important job details.

How to post a job on Indeed

If your job isn’t already on Indeed, here’s a quick step-by-step overview of how to post a job on Indeed:

Before you start

To save yourself time, you may want to check if Indeed has already aggregated or “pulled” your job posting from a career site or your employer applicant tracking system (ATS). If you’ve posted a job elsewhere, there’s a chance it’s already on Indeed. If this is the case, you can skip through the posting process and go straight to managing or sponsoring your job.  

To check if your job is already on Indeed, head to your Employer Dashboard’s Jobs page and click All Jobs. Here you can see the jobs that are already aggregated. 

From your dashboard, you can enable features like Indeed Apply, edit the job post to include salary and precise location details, add sponsorship to boost visibility and more.

Step 1: Click the Post a Job button to get started

You can start your first job post by clicking the button at indeed.com/hire, or by clicking on Post a Job.

If you’ve already posted a job before, you can always click the Post a Job button in your Employer Dashboard.

Step 2: Enter your job details

Next, you’ll be prompted to add some key details that job seekers look for in search results. You might be tempted to skip certain job details, but especially important to include may be the job’s salary, as jobs with employer-provided salaries listed receive 3.8X more applications.^[2] 

According to our research, job seekers search using preferences like skills, location attributes like postal code, work from home (WFH)/remote flexibility and commute distance to decide if they will apply. When you provide all the info a job seeker needs, you can have a better chance of capturing the right person’s attention.

Some of the most important info to include is:

• Pay range
• Benefits
• Shift details
• Location
• Required qualifications and skills
• Type of job: Full-time or part-time
• Work from home/remote

The more information you provide, the better. All the details you include are used to show quality candidates your job post in the search results.

Step 3: Add your job description

Need help writing your job description? Get started with our job description templates as a foundation for a job post of your own. We have job description templates available across hundreds of job titles so you never have to start from scratch.

Once your job description is ready, we’ll prompt you to add it to the job description section when you post your job.

We’ve done a lot of research and found that these qualities make a job description more successful:

• Starts with required qualifications
• Has small, easy-to-read paragraphs (not big blocks of text)
• Uses bullet points to break up text
• Has an accessible vocabulary anyone can understand
• Is written in an upbeat, conversational tone

Step 4: Include applicant qualifications 

Indeed’s applicant qualifications tools can help you zero in on great applicants and decide who to contact for an interview.

At the Applicant Qualifications page, you can ask screener questions that immediately qualify or disqualify your applicants. Indeed has a number of pre-made questions to choose from based on your job title to get the information you need from applicants upfront, but you can also create your own questions and include as many as you need on the application. 

Sending auto-rejections when an applicant does not meet your requirements helps you earn the Responsive Employer Badge, an icon that lets job seekers know you’re more likely to respond as they decide which jobs to apply to.

Step 5: Choose to sponsor or post for free*

Most jobs on Indeed can be posted for free.* But if you want a larger number of applicants, sponsoring your job gives your job post better visibility to job seekers.

You only pay for the performance of your Sponsored Job and there are no long-term contracts when you sponsor. You can also feel confident knowing you can start, stop or pause your job at any time –– we know hiring needs can change quickly. 

Sponsoring can make a big difference for employers who are serious about hiring. In fact, our data shows us that employers are 60% more likely to make a hire when sponsoring.  Learn more about How Pricing Works on Indeed. 

*Terms, conditions, quality standards, and usage limits apply. Feature availability may be limited, and is subject to change at Indeed’s discretion.

Free v. Sponsored Jobs

Should you post for free* or sponsor your job? Sponsoring may be right for you if:

• You need to make a hire as soon as possible
• You need to hire someone for a hard-to-fill position that requires specialized skills (e.g., nurse, software engineers, managers)
• You’re hiring in a competitive market
• You have a good job description and title but aren’t attracting the right candidates

*Terms, conditions, quality standards, and usage limits apply. Feature availability may be limited, and is subject to change at Indeed’s discretion.

Step 6: Get feedback on your job description

Before posting your job, it can be useful to have it reviewed by your colleagues and hiring team. Consider getting feedback from people who will be working directly with the new employee or those who have worked in the role before. Our Indeed survey insights on what makes a good job description can help you fine-tune your job description. 

Considerations before posting a job

Before you post your next job, it may also be worth having conversations with your hiring team and preparing a few things beforehand.

Align on required vs. nice-to-have qualifications

When multiple people are responsible for determining if a candidate is a good match for a given role, it’s important to be on the same page about which skills and qualifications are must-have and which are just nice-to-have.

In your job description, clearly label which qualifications are required and which are preferred. Doing so can encourage the right people to apply. 

Confirm a pay range for the job

Job seekers look for opportunities that meet their salary needs. Make sure you and your hiring team are aligned on salary or a salary range before adding it to your job post. You can come up with a fair salary range with the salary recommendation tool on the Job Details page when posting a job. You can also use Indeed Hiring Insights to view similar listings from your top competitors and evaluate their salary ranges for related roles.

Read more on how to offer a competitive salary.

Decide who will be receiving applications

When applications start rolling in, you’ll get a daily email listing the people who applied to your job that day. This email will be sent to the Indeed account owner’s email address by default, but you can enter your colleague’s email if you’d prefer them to receive applications.

You can also specify different email addresses for different jobs depending on who the hiring manager or recruiter is for that particular role.

If you want to receive a separate email for each individual candidate who applies, click Company Settings in your Employer Dashboard and select Email Preferences.

Using Indeed alerts, you can even customize your notifications to select which candidates Indeed sends your way, such as candidates who match the job criteria or all candidate applications.

Decide on cover letter requirements

If you’d like applicants to submit a cover letter with their application, mention this requirement in the body of your job posting.

To determine if a cover letter is necessary for your posting, you may want to consider whether:

• You have time to read each applicant’s cover letter
• Your purpose for requesting one
• If the cover letters add value to the applications

If you can’t seem to find good reasons to request a cover letter, you may want to choose an alternative way to screen candidates, such as using structured application questions or a skills test. 

Confidential Jobs – what they are and how to use them

You may need to post a job without disclosing your organization’s name. Indeed enables you to do this by posting a Confidential Job. When you choose to make a job confidential, the post will not display your company name nor will the post be visible on your company page. 

To post a Confidential Job, check that your job is sponsored and is using Indeed’s recommended budget (required for confidential jobs) and select Need to post confidentially when going through the review step of your post.

Policies for how to post jobs on Indeed for multiple locations

If you’re posting a job with multiple openings for the same role but in different areas, you may wonder what to put as the job’s location. Familiarizing yourself with Indeed’s policies on appropriate use of location may help you with this. These policies help increase transparency and prevent job seeker searches from displaying results that are inaccurate, misleading or redundant. 

In general, location variations (any job posted outside the true working location) are not allowed except for roles with legitimate multiple working locations. For example, a restaurant chain looking to fill server roles in multiple chain locations.

If this is the case, you can use the “Use a previous job as a template” feature in your Jobs dashboard to create the job postings and include the precise location with postal code.

Some basic guidelines to follow if your posting does not have multiple legitimate working locations include:

• Statewide jobs should not require job seekers to live more specifically than at the state level
• Nationwide and remote location jobs should not require job seekers to live more specifically than at the national level

If your job is fully remote, “remote” will be the most precise location you can offer, and you will not be prompted to choose a street address, city or post code. 

Our guide to posting a remote job on Indeed provides detailed information on posting hybrid and remote jobs.

Job posting language requirements

To create the best possible experience for job seekers, consider familiarizing yourself with Indeed’s job posting language requirements. When reviewing job postings, Indeed checks to ensure that posts:

• Do not include offensive language
• Do not have “click bait” or misleading job titles
• Are original and don’t include plagiarized content
• Are not discriminatory in any way
• Adhere to all state and federal laws

By adhering to Indeed’s job posting standards, your listings may better support potential candidates during their job search.

Inside Indeed’s Trust & Safety team

Indeed has an entire Trust & Safety team committed to maintaining a high level of search quality for all its job postings. This team helps ensure the search results for job seekers are free of spam, predatory offers and misleading listings. 

To maintain this high level of quality, the Trust & Safety team reviews posts for:

• Respect for job seeker privacy 
• Accurate representations of both the job and the employer 
• Ease of access to job details and contact information 
• Original job listings that have not been reposted or aggregated from other places

Indeed’s evaluation criteria

You likely put a lot of work into your job post, so to reduce the chances of it being rejected, consider reviewing Indeed’s evaluation criteria for job postings. These criteria are in place to deliver the best possible job seeker experience. 

In general, all postings must be genuine jobs, not advertisements, training courses, franchise opportunities or fraudulent listings. The post must not require the applicant to register or pay application fees or request sensitive information from the applicant. To protect job seeker trust, any fraudulent listings or listings asking for payment or sensitive information will be flagged and rejected.

Consider double-checking your post to be sure it includes essential and accurate job details such as the precise location with postal code, company name, job title and an accurate job description. Duplicate listings from multiple sources are not accepted, and reposted jobs are discouraged to guard against negative user experiences.

Read more about Indeed’s job posting guidelines.

Opportunities to leverage Indeed externally

Leveraging your post externally can be a great way to get more eyes on your listing and increase your chances of connecting with the right job seekers. 

One way to do this is to embed links from your Indeed job posting on your website, social media, email lists or other channels your organization may use to expand its reach.

When posting the job on your website, be sure each job has its own site page with a unique URL, and avoid posting jobs as PDFs or Word documents. This helps search engines find and index your job listings more easily. 

You may also want to include separate fields for the job title, precise location with street address and postal code, and the role’s detailed description to help the listing appear in relevant searches and improve your organization’s chances of attracting the right candidates. Make it easy for applicants to apply by providing a prominent Apply button, link or email address on the post’s page.

Found your job on Indeed? Learn more about how to optimize jobs from your career site or ATS directly on Indeed.

Enhance Jobs from your Career Site or ATS

Consider setting up automated source tracking to discover where job applicants found your listing, like an ATS that integrates with Indeed. This will help you measure the success of your external leveraging efforts and focus on the ones with the best results.

Using an XML job feed is another way to leverage your post outside of Indeed. Provide an XML job feed with details of all jobs on your site, updated when new jobs are added, to quickly include your jobs on Indeed. This type of direct employer integration can be used with Indeed Apply.

What is Indeed Apply?

Indeed Apply, also known as Easy Apply, helps simplify the application process for job seekers by allowing them to quickly and directly apply to job postings using their Indeed Resume or Profile. Easy Apply is the default application experience for jobs you post directly on Indeed. 

You can opt in to use it with jobs aggregated by Indeed through an email address in the job description or by using Indeed Apply Sync Integration through an organization’s ATS. You can also add Indeed Apply to jobs from your Jobs list, either as a single job or in bulk.

Using Indeed Apply for your job posting lets you offer job seekers a streamlined approach to the application process and provides them with numerous other benefits such as:

• Easy and quick application submission
• Mobile-optimized interface for convenient application from any device
• Clear labeling of jobs with Indeed Apply in search results via Easy Apply and Apply with your Indeed Resume
• Integration with Indeed Resume for seamless application using the applicant’s existing profile.

With 49% of workers saying job applications are too complex, benefits like these may help job seekers by reducing common barriers to completing applications. 

When the application process is more streamlined for job seekers, employers can benefit too. Jobs with Indeed Apply see 45% more apply starts^[3] and up to 21% more clicks^[4], and the mobile-optimized application process attracts more applicants and provides them with a better application experience.

Using Indeed Apply can also help your organization attract candidates best suited for an open role. By adding screener questions to your job you can improve your hiring efficiency. In fact, jobs with screener questions are 50% more likely to result in a hire^[5].

To make it even easier for organizations, jobs listed with Indeed Apply seamlessly integrate into your employer account and can be easily found in your Candidates tab or your organization’s ATS.

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Our top takeaways for posting your job on Indeed are:

• Write your job post so it’s simple and easy to understand
• Include a pay range and precise location with postal code in your job description
• Answer as many of Indeed’s prompts as you can when posting
• Start your job post with must-have skills and qualifications
• Add screener questions to help find responsive, quality candidates
• Sponsor your job to increase your odds of making a hire
• Embed links from your Indeed job posting on your organization’s website
• Sync Indeed with your organization’s ATS
• Take advantage of Indeed Apply to streamline the application process
• Reach out to our Customer Success team if you need help

Indeed job posting FAQs

Can I post a job for free?*

Yes, most jobs on Indeed can be posted for free.* Free postings lose visibility over time, but they can be a great option if you’re on a budget.

*Terms, conditions, quality standards, and usage limits apply. Feature availability may be limited, and is subject to change at Indeed’s discretion.

Can I post a job without listing the salary?

Yes. It’s completely optional to post a job with salary details on Indeed. However, 67% of job seekers consider salary information to be the most important component of a job description when looking for new opportunities. Including salary or a salary range upfront can help you stand out to the right candidates. In fact, on Indeed, jobs that show employer-provided salary information have 31% more apply starts per impression.^[6]

How long does it take for Indeed to post a job?

In most cases, our review process takes between 24–48 hours.

How long do Indeed job postings stay up?

Job postings on Indeed will remain active until you pause, close or remove the job yourself. However, if you post your job for free, it will be most visible to job seekers for the first two or three days after posting. After that, it will start to fall back in the search results.

How do I cancel my job posting?

You can pause, close or remove your job posting at any time. Just click Edit Job in the Employer Dashboard. From there, you can change your budget, pause your job or close it. We know that hiring needs can quickly change, which is why Indeed gives you complete control of your spend.

Does Indeed remove job postings?

According to our job posting guidelines, Indeed may reject or remove any job and may disable any company’s account, for any or no reason. We cannot give every reason why a job or a company may be removed, and we always retain the right to undertake such the removal of any job, organic or sponsored, if we feel it is in our interest or our users’ interest.

Why do I see my job posting when I didn’t post it on Indeed?

You may see your job post on Indeed even though you didn’t directly post it. That’s because Indeed aggregates job posts from places like career sites and other job boards.

Back to Hiring with Indeed

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