The best job boards for employers in 2024
Job sites and search engines are crucial to almost any successful hiring strategy. But the list of job boards available online in 2024 is almost endless. So as an employer or recruiter, how do you choose the right job posting site for your needs? With help from our overview of the best job boards below!
Table of contents
Most hiring managers rely on job boards to attract and recruit the right talent for their business. That’s why every day, employers and job seekers connect with each other on thousands of job search sites to try to find the perfect professional match for open positions.
Knowing how to identify and leverage the best job boards for your use case can help you match faster and more cost-efficiently.
Below, we guide you through the world of job sites, showing you the different types of job sites out there and how to pick the right site for your specific talent-attraction needs. Alternatively, use any of the links below to jump straight to the top job boards to use in 2024.
- Picking the best job board for your needs
- Best job boards and job search engines for employers in 2024
- Further job board types and resources
Picking the best job board for your needs
Whether you have a dedicated HR team or not, hiring the best people is essential if you want to thrive. But where can you find the candidates to build and expand your team? And how do you attract that top talent?
With so many job boards out there, focussing on different sectors and markets, it can be difficult to know where to start. But not to worry, we’re here to help.
What is a job board?
Let’s start with what a job board actually is, what it’s not, and some different types of online job boards.
“A job board is a site where employers and in-house or external recruiters can place job postings. It’s also where job seekers can search and apply for job opportunities.”
For a more detailed definition, check out our Glossary page: What is a job board?
Note that a job board is not the same as a job search engine.
The latter, also called a job aggregator, searches the internet and collects job listings from across the web. This can include job advertisements pulled from multiple job boards but also from company career pages. An example of a popular job search engine is Indeed.
Job boards, on the other hand, are generally more focused on one particular industry, sector, or job type (like Berlin Startup Jobs or Dribbble).
Different types of job sites
Another distinction to be aware of is the difference between generalist job boards and specialist or niche job boards.
Generalist job platforms can host job ads from a variety of industries and professions. From Marketing to Finance and from the Healthcare sector to the Construction sector. Specialist job boards, on the other hand, focus on one industry or profession in particular. For example, the job board Online Marketing Jobs.de only publishes job posts and openings for marketing positions.
Because generalist job sites have a broader audience, these job boards will give you a higher reach for your job ads. But the downside is that it’s more difficult to target the right job seekers for your job openings. Due to the total volume of ads on generalist job boards, your job posting will also face higher competition.
With niche job boards, you will tap into a smaller talent pool, but your reach will be more effective and targeted towards the best-qualified job candidates.
From looking at our data of over 80,000 companies that use JOIN’s free recruiting software – combined having posted more than 500,000 jobs using our tool – we see that often companies use a mixed approach in their talent attraction strategy. Meaning, they publish job ads on both generalist and specialist job boards simultaneously to maximise their reach.
Lastly, note that you can also have professional social networking sites – such as LinkedIn or XING – that also function as a job board.
Benefits of using job boards to attract and hire talent
So now you know what job boards are, let’s quickly look at the main benefits of making job board posting an essential part of your hiring strategy.
Dip into a large talent pool
Job seekers generally start their job hunt on online job boards or professional networking sites. By promoting your job ads on these job websites, you can easily get your job opening in front of thousands – if not millions – of potential applicants.
Many generalist and specialist job sites to choose from
Looking for a digital marketing professional in Europe? Try Online Marketing Rockstars.
Looking for an apprentice in Germany? Try UNICUM.
No matter the role, industry, specialisation, or geographical location – there’s a generalist or niche job search site suitable for all your talent attraction needs!
Employer branding
Many job boards – and especially the more networking-oriented platforms – allow you to create a company page on their site. And you can leverage this space to boost your employer branding.
On your company profile page, you can highlight aspects of your business that make it a great place to work, from company culture and values to sharing photos of your sleekly designed office!
Suggested read: How to create a LinkedIn Business page that attracts great talent
Easier than sourcing passive candidates
Sourcing passive candidates, meaning someone who is not proactively looking for a job, can be a difficult, time-consuming process that requires a lot of resources from your side. With job boards, you simply publish a job ad on your job website of choice, and the job seekers will come to you.
And by adding the right talent acquisition tool to the mix, you can decrease effort while maximising reach even further. Which brings us to the next point.
Using job boards efficiently: Talent attraction software
So, you’ve identified the best job search websites to publish your job listing to. Great news!
But then you realise it means you have to go to each site separately. For every new job portal, you need to set up a company account, build the job advertisement (entering details like the job description and adding screening questions, for example), and publish your ad. Repeating this process for dozens of job boards takes a lot of time and manual effort.
And once the job post is online and applications are coming in, you will have to keep checking each site separately for incoming messages from potential candidates. Before you know it, you’re wasting hours every week by switching between job alerts on all the different platforms.
That’s where an applicant tracking system (ATS) or talent attraction system with multiposting functionality comes in. When using such a tool, you only have to create an account and job ad once in your tool of choice before being able to publish your ad on multiple job boards at once – with just one click.
Once candidates start applying to your ad across the different job boards, all applications and incoming messages will be centrally collected in your applicant tracking system. Saving you hours of time and a bunch of manual labour!
Curious to find out more? Then have a look at what JOIN’s free recruiting software has to offer:
Best job boards and job search engines for employers in 2024
Now you know the ins and outs of job board recruitment, it’s time to dive into our curated list of the best job search sites out there today. We’ve divided the list into different sections and categories to help you find the best job search site you’re looking for more easily.
- How we selected the best job sites on this list
- Top 15 job posting sites (general)
- Best job boards based on budget
- Best job boards based on location
- Further job board types and resources
How we selected the best job sites on this list
To create the first list (the best job boards in 2024), we looked into which job search sites offer the highest reach but also overall value to employers searching for qualified candidates.
This is why you will mostly find generalist platforms on this list rather than smaller, niche sites. But as we’re a European company (headquartered in Germany), we’ve decided also to include a few sites that are particularly great for European companies looking for job seekers.
Please note that this doesn’t necessarily mean that these websites offer the best solution for your specific hiring needs. If you are looking for experienced professionals in a particular niche industry, you might need to use a portal that specialises in that industry instead.
That’s why we, to still help you find the right board for you, included a bunch of additional lists around specific hiring needs and criteria. This way, there’s hopefully a relevant job search website to tailor to whatever hiring need you might have.
Of course, you can also simply create a JOIN account (it only takes seconds) to get an overview of the 250+ job sites you can leverage with our tool:
Top 15 job posting sites (general)
Let’s start with some of the largest, most popular (international) job boards out there. All these platforms are available across most countries in Europe, connecting European employers with job seekers across the globe.
Indeed
Indeed is the largest job search engine in the world, with over 300 million unique visitors per month from over 60 countries. The platform allows job seekers to search for employment opportunities in practically any field and location.
As an employer, you can post job openings and advertise them to millions of potential applicants worldwide. The site offers a range of pricing options, including pay-per-click, sponsored job postings, and targeted campaigns.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social network, with over 830 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The platform provides a variety of features for job seekers and employers, including job search, job alerts, job advertising, and custom business pages.
The site offers free ad posting alongside several pricing options for job postings, including pay-per-click and job slots. LinkedIn also provides a premium service called Recruiter, which allows employers to access advanced search filters and candidate analytics.
Google for Jobs
Google Search is the world’s most popular search engine, with over 3.5 billion searches per day. The platform provides a variety of search results, including job listings from various job boards and company career pages.
Google also offers a specialized job search feature, Google for Jobs, which allows job seekers to filter results by location, job type, and other criteria. Employers can post ads on their company career pages and have them indexed by Google for Jobs.
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 2.8 billion monthly active users.
The social platform allows pinpointed targeting based on demographic information and interests. Ads are shown to users in Facebook’s newsfeed and are a great way to reach potential candidates that aren’t actively job hunting (passive candidates).
Instagram is another popular social network for sharing photos and videos. Similarly to Facebook, the site isn’t specifically designed for job search or job postings and is rather used to reach and attract passive talent.
The platform offers several features that can be used for recruiting, such as company pages, sponsored posts, and hashtags. Ads are shown in the newsfeed or as Instagram stories.
Google Display
Google Display is a platform for displaying ads across millions of websites, apps, and videos. Employers can use this platform to advertise their job ads to a massive audience.
The network offers a range of targeting options, including demographics, interests, and behaviours. Employers can choose cost-per-click and cost-per-impression pricing models.
Monster
Monster is one of the oldest job boards in the world. Founded in 1994, Monster has over 35 million unique visits every month in over 50 countries worldwide.
As a generalist job site, Monster helps you target a diverse range of job-hunting professionals. Note that Monster only allows for paid job posting options, meaning you can’t use free job postings.
Jobrapido
Jobrapido is a job search engine that aggregates job listings from various job boards and business career pages. The platform has over 100 million registered users in more than 58 countries, making it one of the largest job search sites in the world.
As a hiring manager, you can purchase single job ad placements or opt-in for Jobrapido’s smart subscription model to enjoy unlimited advertising for a selected number of months.
Talent.com
Talent.com is a global network with over 60 million active users per month in more than 75 countries.
The platform centralises all jobs across the web to help companies connect with talent more easily. Aside from the typical features such as job ad posting, Talent also has a salary calculator and can estimate the amount of tax deductible to give a realistic overall wage for applicants.
Jooble
Jooble is active in over 65 countries in the world and is available in 25 languages. Their company mission is straightforward – to help people find work.
As a job aggregator, the site collects vacancies from over 140,000 resources across the web, including company websites, social networks, and many more. Jooble offers both free and premium job posting.
Jobijoba
Jobijoba is another job aggregator. The company was founded in 2007 and currently has websites in over 10 countries around the globe. Jobijoba was acquired by Hellowork in 2018.
To start using Jobijoba as an employer, you need to send them your company information and your website, and they will get back to you regarding pricing information.
beBee
beBee is a social network for professionals that operates in more than 90 countries. The network is similar to LinkedIn, with a strong emphasis on the personal branding of candidates.
Users can join groups – called Hives – where they can interact with professionals with similar fields or interests. As a company, you can easily publish job posts for free on beBee and several other platforms simultaneously.
We Work Remotely
We Work Remotely is a job board that specializes in remote work opportunities. The site has over 4.5 million visitors, making it the largest remote work community in the world.
Employers can post jobs and reach a massive audience of remote job seekers through a variety of pricing options, including pay-per-post and subscription plans.
FlexJobs
FlexJobs is a job board that specializes in flexible work arrangements, such as remote work, hybrid work, part-time work, and freelance work.
The site was founded in 2007 and hosts one of the largest communities of workers looking for jobs with flexible working arrangements. As an employer, you can enjoy unlimited advertisement posting for one flat rate.
JobsinIT
JobsinIT is a job board that specialises in information technology (IT) positions. The site operates in multiple countries and belongs to the Jobsin Network, which has over 100 different job boards across Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the US.
The focus at JobsinIT is on English-speaking jobs, making it a great starting point for your job ad if you are looking to attract English-speaking talent.
And there you have it, our list of some of the best job search websites out there today. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. With JOIN, you can easily multipost to 100+ job boards with just one click. Check out the full list inside your free JOIN account:
The best job boards based on specific criteria
As promised, we also created a bunch of other lists with the best job search sites grouped by certain criteria. And whenever we create a new article about different types of job websites, we’ll add it to this list, so you’ll have everything easily in one place.
Based on budget
For a successful recruitment strategy, you’ll want to reach as many potential candidates as possible. But with recruiters being asked to do more with less, budget restraints can make this difficult. Many job boards only offer paid listings.
However, some great job boards let you post jobs for free! Here are some of the best places to post your job ads without blowing your budget.
Top 3 free job boards:
- Google for Jobs
- Indeed
For the full list, check out our separate article with the best free job boards.
Although free job sites are a great place to start – and often even enough to find a qualified hire – you might have to make some budget available to speed up the process or better target specialist talent.
Most of the free job sites mentioned in our list above also offer premium options to promote your ads further. But especially in the case of many niche job boards, there might not even be an option for free promotion to start with.
So, looking for paid job board inspiration?
Top 3 paid job boards:
- Indeed
- Google Search
For more inspiration, check out our separate article with the 9 best paid job portals.
Based on location
Are you looking to hire talent in different countries? Then be sure to first check out our detailed guide: Global recruitment: How to hire international employees!
Or dive directly into one of these location-focused lists of job boards:
- Best job sites in the Netherlands
- Best job sites in Spain
- Best Austrian job boards
- Best Swiss job boards
- Best German job boards
- Best remote job sites
Other job board types and helpful resources
Need even more suggestions? Then check out the following additional pages:
Frans Lelivelt
Frans is JOIN's multilingual Senior Content Manager. His main topic of interest in the recruitment space is DEI and how companies can reduce their (unconscious) biases to make the world of work a fairer, kinder place for everyone. Outside of work, he tries to do the same for animals, spending much of his spare time in the kitchen preparing plant-based feasts.
