Multi posting what is it and do we need it?

Multiple posting is becoming an essential tool to have as a recruiter. It is common knowledge that no single job board can consistently produce results and quite often some vacancies need to be placed on up to 5 job boards (niche and generic) to return the required candidates to fill the position within a reasonable amount of time. An effective multipost service enables a significant reduction in the time to post adverts to job boards and manage the response from one place, which in turn gives recruiters extra time and resources to concentrate on generating more business or searching for candidates.

Due to the relatively low cost of advertising on job boards as appose to print media there has been an explosion of avenues to use to get the job ‘out there'. More and more recruitment companies are baiting their hooks with multi-posting to fish a bigger pond, quicker. That said if you're not aware of these methods then you're not going to benefit.

More importantly (correct me if I'm wrong)I'd go as far to say if you're not using multi-posting methods you are wasting important time, manually jumping from job board to job board logging in and starting the posting process again with the added chore of managing the response from different locations.

‘Multi-posting is an added expense'

Remembering the fundamentals in most businesses where time is money, getting ‘the job done' in the shortest time available without cutting corners can only be a good thing. Job posting online within the recruitment industry is not going to diminish and getting a cost effective way to reduce the amount of time spent doing this important but timely task will pay a certain way to the cost that can be attributed to this service. That said I would discourage anyone from entering into lengthy contracts with a multipost service before considering alternatives as from experience peaks and troughs aren't factored into this type of agreement.

‘Why would I go to the trouble if I only post the odd vacancy'?

Multiple posting is no longer exclusive to big companies that post 1000's of jobs to numerous job boards every month. By exploring what's out there you can save the unwanted headache of overburdening yourself with the extra fixed cost that comes with certain multipost providers and still benefit from the important bits multiposting can offer.

‘I don't need the whistles and bells that multi-posters include in the cost'

I do tend to agree that some of the technology used on certain multiposters such as ‘sector analysis' or RMS is quite simply not needed for the low usage SME recruiter. However a simple applicant tracking method that tells which job board is performing can give an idea of cost per hire (if you're interested in that kind of thing)

Whatever next.

Like all resources the multipost service is here to stay and will become more widely used and (whether we like it or not) more technology focused. Multipost type services have been used by big companies for well over a decade and it won't be long before the choice of service providers multiplies the more SME recruiters understand the importance of this type of service. That said the more services that are available the more inventive providers will be to get recruiters to use their product, which will undoubtedly bring down costs and costing structures. (At long last).

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Comment by Jüri Kaljundi on February 17, 2010 at 9:42am: One thing many forget is that modern multi-posting also includes not just job boards, but search engines (Simply Hired, Indeed, Google Base etc), social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Buzz etc) and e-mail (both personal as well as to mailing lists, like for sharing and forwarding by employees). You need to be able to do it all from one place, to be able also to track statistics and analyze. And when 10 years back we could just throw out the ads from the pipe to multiple job boards, it needs much more customization for each channel and use case. Then again the results can be better nowadays as well.

Comment by Saleem Qureshi on February 18, 2010 at 1:45am: How could you be ensure that multiple-posting will help you out to find great talent? A recruiter must be careful while posting a job and have a great sense of knowledge that where he can hit his target audience Multiple posting on less expensive job boards, will bombarded you with huge amount of respondents, and also waste your time in posting jobs at so many places.

Comment by Mark Jones FIRP on February 18, 2010 at 4:36am: Hi saleem,
The fact is every job board, has good and bad days depending on who is looking at any given time. By carefully selecting the job boards by performance and strength, then covering the industry focus by posting on quality niche boards, you are giving yourself the best possible chance of success. We post our vacancies to the generalist, niche and regional boards and to top it off reverse publish into the regional paper for the jobseeker that still likes print press. I think if an advert is well written and makes very clear what type of person is required along with some KILLER questions the unsuitable applicants can be kept at a minimum. This problem is something that is not going to go away, but many software providers to the industry are tackiling this issue with parsing technologies.
To answer your final question about wasting time, this is why multiposting is a must as you post it once.
I hope this answers your question,
all the best Scott Taylor (Recruitment Media Director @ Recruitersite.co.uk)

Comment by Jüri Kaljundi on February 18, 2010 at 4:52am: Also let's not forget, that there is a huge amount of (mostly SME) companies who do their own recruitment and have no specialized HR or recruitment staff. Besides, they do it only rarely, in many cases just a few times per year. Third thing is, they often are willing to spend their time instead of money. Let's keep a broad view on this. Too many times recruitment is looked at only from large company, HR department or specialized recruiter point of view, but that's just part of the puzzle.

That means there have to be easy to use, automated, intelligent solutions everyone can use that have machine learning, make decisions for the end user and educate him/her at the same time.

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