LinkedIn is a great platform for companies and recruiters to post job openings and connect with potential candidates. One useful LinkedIn recruiting feature is job slots, which allow you to budget and manage how many open positions you want to advertise at one time.
Allocating job slots on LinkedIn involves understanding your hiring needs, setting a recruitment budget, and managing your job postings. Here’s what you need to know about using LinkedIn job slots effectively:
What are LinkedIn job slots?
LinkedIn job slots refer to the number of open job postings you can advertise on LinkedIn at any given time. With LinkedIn Recruiter, Business Plus, or Premium Career accounts, you get a certain number of job slots to use per month or year based on your subscription level.
For example, a Recruiter Lite subscription comes with 20 annual job slots. This means you can post up to 20 different job openings over the course of a year. With each subscription tier, you get more job slots to work with.
When you post a new job on LinkedIn, it takes up one of your available job slots. Once the position is filled or you close the posting, that frees up the slot to be used again. You can continually post and close jobs without exceeding your allotted number of slots.
LinkedIn job slots allow you to strategically budget your openings without overposting positions you can’t fill. This helps target your recruiting efforts and manage job advertising costs.
Why manage your LinkedIn job slots?
Here are some of the key reasons to pay attention to your LinkedIn job slot allocation:
- Control job posting costs – Paid LinkedIn accounts charge per active job post, so managing slots helps control expenses.
- Avoid overwhelming candidates – Posting too many jobs at once can be confusing and time-consuming for applicants.
- Focus your efforts – Targeting fewer openings makes it easier to promote and track each listing.
- Match your hiring capacity – No sense advertising openings you don’t have the capacity to interview and process.
- Improve job post performance – With fewer postings, each job can receive more applicants and engagement.
In short, monitoring your active job slots ensures you don’t over-post or under-utilize your account. The ideal number of slots depends on your hiring needs and recruitment budget.
How to determine your needed job slots
When setting up and managing your LinkedIn job slots, consider the following factors:
Recruitment objectives
First, analyze your overall hiring goals and recruitment strategy for a set period (i.e. monthly, quarterly, or annually). Things like:
- How many positions do you aim to fill?
- What roles do you need to recruit for?
- Are you focused on active recruiting or passive talent pipelines?
- What is your process capacity for screening and onboarding new hires?
This gives you an idea of your hiring workload and how to prioritize job slots.
Account subscription
The level of account you have determines your total possible job slots. Make sure to factor in:
- Number of slots that come with your account tier
- Ability to buy extra slots (and your budget for this)
- Account usage by others in your company (if slots are shared)
Understand how many open job ads your account can support overall.
Historical hiring patterns
Look at past hiring trends to estimate needs, such as:
- Average number of hires per month/quarter
- Seasonal hiring variations
- Time-to-fill metrics by role
- Ratio of job post views to applications
Factoring in this data helps accurately anticipate hiring workload.
Recruitment budget
Your budget often determines how many slots you can manage at once. Things that impact costs include:
- Fixed costs of your LinkedIn account package
- Extra costs if buying add-on slots
- Per active job posting costs
- Other LinkedIn advertising/job promotion costs
Weigh the total spend against value delivered to set an optimal slot range.
Tips for allocating your LinkedIn job slots
Once you know your recruitment needs and objectives, here are some best practices for allotting slots:
Match slots to hiring capacity
First, be realistic about how many openings your team can manage at once. There’s no point in overflowing your pipeline if you can’t screen applicants properly. Assign slots based on your process bandwidth.
Prioritize critical roles
Use slots first for high priority or difficult-to-fill roles where you want maximum exposure. Allocate remaining slots to secondary openings.
Consider timing and seasonality
Jobs posted at certain times – like the start of a quarter or after the new year – often get more attention. Plan your high priority slots around peak hiring periods.
Rotate slots efficiently
Don’t let your slots sit idle but avoid posting too many new jobs at once. Develop a cadence for slot rotation to keep your postings fresh.
Review metrics frequently
Analyze the performance of each active job post – views, applications, time-to-fill etc. Use this intel to inform future slot plans.
Watch budget impact
Keep an eye on your recruitment budget as you use slots. Scale back if costs start exceeding targets.
Managing LinkedIn job slot usage
Once you start posting jobs, continue monitoring your slots usage. Here are some tips:
Track open slots
Watch how many slots you have available at any given time. Make sure you aren’t depleting them too quickly.
Pause slow-moving posts
If a job isn’t gaining traction after a week or two, pause the listing to free up the slot until you’re ready to reactivate it.
Close filled roles
Promptly close postings for filled positions so those slots open back up.
Review performance data
Continuously check metrics for open jobs – are they getting engagement? How long is it taking to fill them? Adjust your strategy if needed.
Watch usage by others
If coworkers also post jobs from a shared Recruiter account, collaborate to manage slots collectively.
Add slots if needed
If you’re filling roles faster than expected and have the budget, you can purchase extra slots.
Conclusion
LinkedIn job slots provide a useful means to budget your openings and segment your recruitment efforts. By taking the time to analyze your hiring needs, slots available, costs, and performance data – you can develop an optimal approach.
The key is finding the right balance where you maximize value from the job postings you have, without over-extending your accounts abilities or recruitment staff. Adjust your slot usage over time as your program evolves.
With the right slot management strategy, this LinkedIn tool can make your job postings and candidate search much more productive.