With all the pushback we’ve been hearing about since Indeed began forcing employers to move to Pay Per Applicant I thought it might be a good idea to remind them what else is out there.

Despite Indeed having more traffic than virtually everyone else (63 million users in the U.S. alone), there are plenty of other sources to recruit from.

Many employers fall into the trap of not diversifying their recruitment ad spend thus relying too much on a small group of sites to fill their jobs. They get hooked on the traffic and think they don’t have to do much else.

But there are plenty of alternatives to spending your money on just one or two job sites. Here’s a list of sites and strategies to consider.

Other Job Aggregators. I won’t mention the obvious choices, you know who those are. But take a look at lesser known job aggregators such as Jobcase, Talent.com, Talroo, Lensa and Adzuna. Jobcase focuses only on the hourly market but they are a top 5 job site in terms of traffic.
Programmatic Job Platforms. PandoLogic, Joveo, Appcast. These vendors will take your job ad budget and spend it PPC style across a variety of job sites. Just send them a job feed from your ATS and let them send you traffic. It’s the quickest way to diversify your spend.
Google. Buy Google keywords for your evergreen jobs so you can appeal to those who start their job search on Google. I think Google ads are great for advertising skill based keywords like “nursing jobs near me” or “remote marketing jobs”. In addition, Google may soon be announcing sponsored ads inside Google for Jobs. Once they do that, there will be an instant alternative to Indeed that can match it in terms of traffic.
Remarketing. Most employers send traffic to jobs on their ATS but fail to convert most of those clicks. As many as 95% of all job clicks are abandoned. But you can change this dynamic by remarketing your jobs to those that dont apply. A platform called Dalia exists that will capture job seekers who don’t apply right away and get them to come back later through email and text.
Your own job board. This idea is mainly for staffing firms. A lot of them are starting to launch their own job sites to augment their existing business and lessen their reliance on Indeed. My job board consulting practice has been quite busy lately by staffing firms pursuing their own job sites to take control back from the big sites they have to pay to play on.
Social media advertising. Facebook ads, Linkedin ads, even Youtube ads are another way to diversify your job advertising budget. These channels don’t typically convert as well as an intent based job board might but they are great for trying to rise above the crowd and generating interest from passive candidates.
Employee advocates. Double down on your employee referral programs. And start to build employee ambassadors by incentivizing them to share your job openings and hiring message across their own social media accounts. The more involvement you can get from your workers the less you have to spend on Indeed.
Niche Job Boards. There are probably 1,000+ niche job boards online to recruit from. These sites are typically small but highly focused communities of like minded professionals that offer quality candidates vs quantity of clicks that sites like Indeed provide. Research them with our free ebook and discover whats out there.

I’ll end with a quote from Jim Durbin who manages recruitment marketing for PSG Global, an RPO. He told me the following about why diversifying your job ad spend is so important.

“The obvious reason is risk. If one company is your only source of candidates, they control your fate. A second reason is that each job board has a unique audience, and the quality of a unique candidate your competitors aren't reaching is a huge upside. The third reason is the health of the ecosystem. Large companies can't provide customized solutions, which stifles long-term innovation.”