Job adverts
How long should a job advert run?
Four weeks is the standard listing and is long enough for most roles — ours run 28 days across the major boards. The useful thing to know is that the response curve is front-loaded: an advert does most of its work in the first week, so a role that is quiet after seven days will usually still be quiet on day 28 unless something changes. Re-writing and re-posting beats waiting.
The standard is 28 days
Most UK flat-fee advertising packages, including ours, run a 28-day listing. That is long enough to catch people who only look at weekends and short enough that the advert has not gone stale.
Treat day seven as the decision point
Applications arrive fastest at the start, when the advert is new on the board and near the top of a search. By the end of the second week it is competing with everything posted since.
So the useful question at day seven is not "shall we wait?" but "is this working?":
- Applications arriving, none suitable. The advert is reaching people; the targeting or the essentials list is wrong. Rewrite and repost.
- Almost nothing arriving. Reach or salary. See why is my advert getting no applications.
- Good applications arriving. Then the risk moves to you. Across our own filled roles the pattern that loses candidates is not a short advert, it is slow feedback.
Refreshing matters more than extending
Some packages refresh the listing part-way through, which puts it back near the top of a board's results. That is generally worth more than an extra fortnight at the bottom.
When the calendar is the wrong tool
Across 46 vacancies we filled the median was 42 days from brief to hire and the slowest took 169. Roles like that are not fixed by a longer advert — the candidates are not looking, so no listing length reaches them. That is the point at which advertising stops being the right instrument.
Want the fixed price for your role?
Advertise it yourself from £399 +VAT, or hand the whole search to a dedicated recruiter — a flat fee by salary band with a 100% refund if the role is not filled.
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