If you missed on our 3 part blog series, check them out:

• Part 1: Job Ad Posting Distribution: Rise of Niche Job Boards
• Part 2: Job Ad Posting Distribution: Job Search Engines
• Part 3: Job Ad Posting Distribution: Social Networks

We recently did a 3 part series on Job Ad Distribution where we took a look at the three main portals that you could use to post your jobs online: job boards (major & niche), job search engines and social networks.

Now we would like to take a look at the software that you can use to post your job ads online quickly and easily for all your jobs and what value the software can provide to an organization. So let's take a look at why you would use a job ad distribution vendor.

What are the Benefits of Job Ad Distribution Software?

A job distribution vendor provides two main benefits for a recruiting team: time savings and tracking.

1. Time Savings - Recruiters save time by automating the job ad distribution process and not having to manually send their job ads for each one of their jobs to every single board they want. To do so manually would be a job unto itself whereas a vendor can cut down this process to a few minutes enabling the recruiter to use this extra time in better ways.
2. Tracking - Job Ad Distribution software enables a recruiting team to track where they distribute their job ads and control posting inventory and costs for boards they are a part of in one central resource. Some vendors will also track the performance of the job ads for every portal as well.

What should you look for in a Job Ad Distribution Vendor?

Arbita, BroadBean, Data Frenzy, eQuest, FirstAdvantage and SmashFly Technologies (that's us) are a few of the vendors that provide job ad distribution services for recruiters. But what services should you look for when choosing one of these vendors? Here are a few you should consider:

Reach: Make sure that any vendor first supports the job boards and distribution portals that you currently utilize in your job campaigns or has the ability to quickly integrate with these portals for you. Also, make sure that the vendor supports portals outside of major job boards if you use them or plan on using them in your recruiting campaigns such as niche job boards, social networks, SEM campaigns, etc.

Metrics: Some vendors provide real-time metrics with their job distribution services. These metrics (job ad views, clicks, apply clicks, etc.) enable recruiters a snapshot of the effectiveness of their recruitment campaigns allowing them to see in what distribution networks their job ads are performing the best. Knowledge that can help recruiters fire under-performing job boards/portals and increase their utilization of top performer ones.

Integration & Flexibility: Make sure that the vendor you choose provides seamless integration with your ATS (so it can pull job requisitions from your ATS to be used in the distribution service). In addition, make sure that the vendor provides integration with all ATS software because if you ever decide to change your ATS, you will want to only change 1 vendor instead of 2.

Hidden Fees: Watch out for hidden fees such as implementation costs. Make sure to get a flat rate from the outset and understand the pricing structure if you want to add additional services in the future.

Job Ad Distribution services can be a great time saver for your organization as you are trying to recruiter the best candidates. When looking for a vendor make sure to create your own criteria of what you need to be created in their services in order to most greatly help your recruiting process.

About the Author: Chris is the Marketing Analyst for SmashFly Technologies. SmashFly offers job ad distribution services through their recruitment marketing platform WildFire. WildFire enables companies to easily launch and more importantly measure their recruitment campaigns online.