LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 740 million members worldwide. It’s become an invaluable tool for recruiting, marketing, sales and business development. One of LinkedIn’s most popular features is job posting, allowing employers to advertise open positions to LinkedIn’s massive audience.
But LinkedIn places certain restrictions on who can post jobs. While any individual member can post jobs for free, companies and organizations are required to have a premium account. This raises the question – do you need a premium account to post jobs on LinkedIn?
The short answer is: it depends. While individual users can post for free, companies and organizations must upgrade to one of LinkedIn’s premium solutions for recruiting:
Who Can Post Jobs on LinkedIn
| User Type | Ability to Post Jobs |
|---|---|
| Individual members | Can post jobs for free |
| Companies / organizations | Require premium account |
As you can see, the ability to post jobs differs between regular users and company/organization accounts. Next, we’ll look at the options for individuals and companies in more detail.
Posting Jobs as an Individual
Any LinkedIn member with a free personal account has the ability to post one job at a time. You can easily post a job from the Jobs tab by clicking “Post a job” and filling out the description.
Some key things to know about posting as an individual:
– You can only have one active job post as a time. To post a new job, you would need to delete or archive an existing one.
– Job posts remain active for 30 days. After 30 days it will automatically expire unless you renew it.
– Your job posts will only be visible to your network and other LinkedIn members searching for jobs in the area, not advertised to LinkedIn’s full audience.
– You have limited options for screening candidates. You would need to rely on applicants reaching out to you directly.
Overall, posting jobs as an individual LinkedIn member is a viable option for very small companies or independent recruiters looking to hire for a single position. However, larger organizations will quickly find the limitations restrictive.
Posting Jobs as a Company/Organization
For companies and organizations, LinkedIn requires upgrading to one of their Talent Solutions packages to post jobs. They offer three options for paid job posting:
LinkedIn Premium Job Posting Options
| Package | Cost | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn Recruiter Lite | $99/month | Post 5 jobs, access limited analytics |
| LinkedIn Recruiter | $599/month | Post 25 jobs, send InMails, access candidate search |
| LinkedIn Recruiter Corporate | Custom pricing | Unlimited jobs, pipeline & analytics tools |
As you can see from the table, Lite offers a basic package for minimal posting needs, while Recruiter and Corporate provide more advanced options for larger recruiters. Here are some key advantages of upgrading to premium:
– Ability to post unlimited jobs. No need to continuously renew individual posts.
– Jobs are advertised to all of LinkedIn, allowing you to reach the entire talent pool.
– Advanced targeting and screening of candidates based on skills, experience, location and more.
– Robust analytics on job performance: views, applicants, source of hires and more.
– Tools to manage the hiring pipeline from initial screening to offer stage.
For most companies, paying for a premium solution is the only scalable way to leverage LinkedIn for recruiting. The limitations of the free posting make it insufficient for an ongoing hiring strategy. Premium accounts unlock LinkedIn’s full capabilities for job advertising and candidate management.
What’s the Better Option for Posting Jobs?
When deciding whether to post jobs for free or upgrade to premium, consider these factors:
– **Number of jobs:** Free posting only allows a single active job, while premium is unlimited. If you have ongoing hiring needs, premium is a must.
– **Candidate visibility:** Free posts only reach your network, while premium targets all qualified candidates. The wider reach may be worth the investment.
– **Management tools:** Premium provides robust tools to manage candidates through the pipeline. Free posting relies solely on applicants reaching out to you.
– **Analytics:** Premium provides insights into job performance you can’t get with free posting. The analytics may help refine your strategy.
For individual recruiters hiring for a single position, free posting may suffice. But for nearly any organization with multiple and continuous openings, premium is likely the better choice. The targeting, analytics and management capabilities give a significant return on investment.
Conclusion
Posting on LinkedIn provides access to the platform’s over 740 million members. While individuals can post for free, companies are required to upgrade to one of LinkedIn’s premium talent solutions.
For organizations, a paid subscription is necessary to effectively leverage LinkedIn for recruiting. The limitations of free posting make premium packages like Recruiter and Corporate far more beneficial for ongoing hiring at scale.
The premium job posting options provide unlimited job posts, advanced targeting, applicant tracking and analytics. Given LinkedIn’s vast candidate pool, the expanded capabilities of premium accounts make them well worth the investment for most hiring managers and recruiters.
