Why Advertising Jobs Doesn’t Fill Them Anymore

I’ve written about this before, but I think it’s time to revisit it.

For years, advertising a vacancy has been one of the most obvious ways for a business to recruit. Write a good job description, put it on a job board, promote it on LinkedIn and wait for the applications to come in.

And they do come in.

But increasingly, the number of applications isn't the problem. The problem is finding the right person amongst them.

Recent reporting from WIRED has highlighted just how easy applying for jobs has become, with one-click applications and AI tools contributing to huge increases in application volumes. Recruiters are finding themselves dealing with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applications for individual vacancies. It Should Be Harder to Apply for a Job. No, Really | WIRED

At first glance, that sounds like a good thing.

More applications should mean more choice.

But recruitment doesn't work quite that way.

More applications don't necessarily mean more suitable candidates

Imagine you've advertised for an experienced Technical Sales Manager and 150 people apply.

It sounds promising.

But how many of those applicants genuinely have the experience you need? How many have worked within your particular industry? How many understand your products, your customers and your market? How many have actually read the job description rather than simply clicking "Apply" because the salary looked interesting?

And then there is the other question that is often overlooked:

How many of the people who would actually be brilliant at the job have applied at all?

That is where things get interesting.

Your best candidate might not be looking for a job

Some of the strongest candidates aren't actively searching for their next move.

They're already employed. They're busy. They may be reasonably happy where they are and have no particular reason to spend their evenings browsing job boards.

That doesn't mean they wouldn't move.

It simply means that your vacancy isn't necessarily going to reach them.

A candidate might be open to a better opportunity if it offered greater responsibility, a shorter commute, more money, a better company culture or simply the chance to work somewhere they find interesting. But unless somebody puts that opportunity in front of them, they may never know it exists.

This is one of the biggest differences between advertising a vacancy and actively recruiting for one.

At Inspire, we regularly speak to people who aren't actively looking for a new role but are willing to have a conversation about the right opportunity. Those conversations are unlikely to happen through a standard job advert because those candidates aren't necessarily searching in the first place.

And then there's AI

AI has changed the recruitment process for both employers and candidates.

For businesses, it can help create job descriptions, organise applications and streamline parts of the hiring process.

For candidates, it can make applying for jobs incredibly quick.

A CV can be tailored to a job description in seconds. A cover letter can be generated almost instantly. Applications can be made at a volume that simply wasn't possible a few years ago.

That's useful technology, but it creates a problem.

When it becomes incredibly easy to apply, an application becomes a much weaker indication of genuine interest.

A perfectly formatted CV doesn't necessarily tell you whether someone really wants the job. And when AI can tailor that CV to almost any job description, simply matching keywords becomes less meaningful.

This is one reason we're seeing a renewed emphasis on relationships, referrals and genuine knowledge of candidates. When technology makes applications easier, human judgement becomes more valuable, not less. Financial Times: Recruiters turn ‘retro’ as AI

makes hiring harder

So should you stop advertising?

No.

Job advertising still has an important role to play.

A good advert can attract people who are actively looking, introduce your company to candidates who haven't considered you before and give potential applicants a clear understanding of the opportunity.

The problem is relying on advertising as your entire recruitment strategy.

If you've advertised a role, received hundreds of applications and still haven't found the right person, simply advertising it again probably isn't going to solve the problem.

Instead of asking:

"How do we get more applications?"

It may be time to ask:

"How do we find the right person?"

Those are two very different questions.

Recruitment should be about more than forwarding CVs

This is also where I think the recruitment industry needs to be honest about the value it provides.

If a recruitment agency is simply taking applications from a job advert and forwarding CVs to you, you have to question what you're actually paying for.

The value of a good recruiter should be in what happens before the CV reaches your inbox.

It's understanding your business and the role properly. It's knowing the local and wider talent market. It's identifying people who have the skills and experience you need, but may not be actively looking. It's approaching those candidates, understanding what motivates them and deciding whether the opportunity is genuinely right for them.

It's also about knowing when someone isn't right.

That matters too.

Sending ten CVs because you have ten people available isn't recruitment. Finding the two people who genuinely fit the role, the company and the expectations of both sides is much closer to what good recruitment should look like.

The candidate who applies isn't always the candidate you want

This is probably the biggest misconception around job advertising.

We tend to assume that the people applying for our vacancies are the people we should be choosing from.

But that's only the pool of people who have seen the advert, decided to apply and taken the time to submit an application.

There is another pool of candidates sitting outside it.

People who are employed.

People who aren't actively searching.

People who might be open to a conversation.

People who could be significantly better suited to your business than the person who happened to see your advert at 8.17pm on Tuesday evening.

Those candidates need to be found, not just advertised to.

I've said this before. I'm saying it again.

When I originally wrote about this subject, my argument was that simply putting a vacancy on a job board was no longer enough to guarantee you would find the right person.

I still believe that.

If anything, the last couple of years have reinforced it.

We now have AI-generated CVs, one-click applications, automated job searches and candidates applying for roles at a scale that would have been difficult to imagine a few years ago.

At the same time, employers are still trying to solve the same fundamental problem:

How do we find someone who can actually do this job and who genuinely wants to work for us?

The answer isn't necessarily more applications.

It's better recruitment.

I constantly speak to HR Managers and Internal Recruiters who tell me that finding the right candidate is their priority over budget, yet when it comes to recruitment, they still rely heavily on advertising.

And I completely understand why. Advertising is familiar, easy to justify and can produce a lot of applications. But if your priority really is finding the very best person for the role, then sometimes you have to look beyond the people who are actively applying and find the people who haven't thought about applying at all.

Because the best candidate for your vacancy may not be sitting in your application inbox.

They might be sitting in someone else's workplace, waiting for the right conversation.

And that's where a good recruiter can make the difference.