Do you own a staffing or recruitment agency? Starting next week, you can no longer post job vacancies on LinkedIn for free. If you want to announce a job vacancy, you must promote it. Officially, this is to keep LinkedIn ‘safe and trustworthy,’ according to the platform. The restrictions, effective from August 1, are intended ‘to prevent abuse, improve product quality, and increase transparency while ensuring job seekers have access to the best possible career opportunities.’
‘Job vacancies from staffing and recruitment agencies may only be promoted.’
LinkedIn states that member safety is the priority with the new guidelines. ‘To ensure that every job vacancy posted on LinkedIn is accurate and of high quality, vacancies from staffing and recruitment agencies must now be promoted when posted on the Budget page. These can no longer be posted for free. This only applies to members posting vacancies via LinkedIn on behalf of companies marked as staffing or recruitment agencies on their company page. This does not affect companies posting vacancies on third-party websites.’
Regular Audits
LinkedIn also announced it will enforce the above guidelines and conduct regular audits to ensure compliance. ‘As part of our compliance audit, we will issue one warning for detected non-compliance and give third-party sites one week to comply.’
LinkedIn reserves the right to terminate the contract of anyone who does not comply with the guidelines.
But if you do not comply, the platform will quickly issue warnings. ‘LinkedIn reserves the right to remove any job posting from the site for any reason to protect our users’ interests. Furthermore, LinkedIn reserves the right to remove partners and immediately terminate the Basic Jobs contract for any third-party job site that does not comply with these guidelines after one warning and/or generates an excessive number of member complaints.’
Indeed Preceded LinkedIn
LinkedIn is not the first to require intermediaries to pay for job postings. Indeed, we already implemented this earlier this year. Since May, all recruitment and staffing agencies on this platform must sponsor their job postings to show them to job seekers. But what exactly do LinkedIn’s new guidelines mean if you run a recruitment agency or are active in the staffing industry? Marcel van der Meer outlines the following implications and provides some tips:
#1. 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆
‘Always mention the actual employer’s name. No generic or hidden names like “confidential”.’
#2. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀
‘Vacancies via third parties may receive less visibility. LinkedIn will strictly monitor, and non-compliance can lead to removing job postings or even terminating your agreement with LinkedIn.’
#3. 𝗡𝗼 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀
‘There will be no more free Limited Listings. This will increase costs, especially for smaller agencies, which may find it unsustainable.’
#4. 𝗝𝗼𝗯 𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀
‘Use clear, accurate job titles without unnecessary capital letters or special characters. The title must match the title in the source listing. It should not be changed to add extra information such as location, company name, or secondary benefits (e.g., “Super job in Rotterdam,” “Engineer—Salary €100k,” etc.).
#5. 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗝𝗼𝗯 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
‘Ensure all information in the job description is accurate and complete.’
The well-known global sourcing and AI trainer recommends informing your team and always providing detailed and up-to-date job listings. He advises agencies to obtain as much exclusivity from employers as possible (‘always better, of course’), so LinkedIn is less likely to penalize them.
