It’s a really bad idea to fly by the seat of your pants when it comes to creating a job posting strategy for your business. There are multiple channels for getting a job post out there in the market this day in age. It’s easy to consider a spam strategy and get it to as many eye balls as possible. This isn’t necessarily going to get you to the right candidate. Some of the risks that come into play when you simply send out the post to the masses are getting an uncontrollable amount of unqualified candidates, or no good ones. That’s not only going to waste your time, but in the end it will waste your money by putting resources towards reviewing candidates. It needs to be targeted and well thought out to reach the right audience. You’re never going to end up avoiding unqualified candidates, but if you get to a nice sweet spot you’ll start having more success.

The other thing to consider is not just job posting websites, but posting jobs via social networks. Many of the job posting websites will automatically post to their own social channels. It might also be worth considering setting up social channels of your own that are specific to open positions. It can get lost in your regular company Facebook or Twitter page with other posts you may be submitting.

Here are a few other thoughts that will give you a nice outline to get started whether you’re in human resources, or a smaller business owner doing the job posts yourself.

1) Search engine optimize your own careers section. Some companies have their career section so buried it’s hard to even locate. This also can affect locating it via organic searches (ie. Google, Bing, ect.) and how your careers section shows up in your website XML site map.

2) Spend more time on your company “About Us” section. Really knock it out of the park with showing off the people and culture of your company online. Display images of real employees, videos of those talking about the company, and some visuals of the actual working environment. It goes a long way in drawing in candidates. Make sure there is a clear call-out to your open positions.

3) Open it up for questions about your company. Have an area that says something like “interested in working with us…click here to ask us some questions”. It shows real transparency and interaction with your potential job candidates.

4) Post on websites that have a clear focus on the career type your hiring. Lets use the example of a finance person. Your going to want to get into the finance job sections on New York Times, career sites like eFinancial Careers, or sites that will challenge their financial strategy like ShinyNeedle. Don’t just post jobs either, offer to be a guest blogger or inquire about other assistance you could provide.

Finally if you want to really own the market start a career website hosted by your company. Offer resources and information around the area of expertise that you’d like to find talent. If you do something like this the only caveat is make sure it really is valuable and relevant. If it’s not it won’t matter, as nobody will be interested.

Do you have other ideas? Shoot us your thoughts or questions on Twitter @shinyneedle.