Job boards work to provide a great candidate experience, that being said, there are rules in place on every job board to support that - jobs that don’t meet a job board’s quality guidelines, receive little to no visibility.
As you can imagine, job ads are flagged in every industry, but each industry's standards are different.
IdealTraits works to help Insurance Agencies hire talent. To do that, a quality job ad is a necessity. Job board guidelines are constantly changing. In order for us to help you, we work closely with our job board partners to maintain the most up-to-date knowledge on the “Do’s” and “Don'ts” of job postings, exclusively in the Insurance Industry.
Note - if your job ad has been posted for at least 2 days and has yet to receive a single applicant, your ad A) likely violates one or more of the job board guidelines mentioned below or B) just isn’t attractive (but that’s for another article).
This article contains what we have found to be the most frequently violated job board policies in the Insurance industry.
Common Violations:
#1 - Job Seeker Fees
#2 - Business Opportunities Policy
#3 - Low-Quality Job Titles/ Title Variations
#4 - Low-Quality Job Ad
#5 - Reposting Policy
#6 - Appropriate Use of Locations
#7 - Commission Only Policy
#8 - Duplicate Posting Policy
#1 - Job Seeker Fees
Fees or required training and/or licensing coming at a cost to job seekers may indicate predatory employment practices.
Example verbiage that could violate this policy:
License Reimbursement
Must Obtain Insurance License
P&C License Required - Willing to Train
Instead, say:
License Required
License Required. Will pay for licensing.
#2 - Business Opportunities Policy
Jobs that advertise opportunities to start, buy, or own a business are prohibited from job boards. The reason is, opportunities like this typically require an investment on behalf of the job seeker - there is no income guarantee or job security, therefore they are not apt for job board advertising.
Examples of Business Opportunities Include:
Own Your Own Book
Run Your Own Business
Become an Agency Owner
Be your own boss
Agent Trainee or Agency Owner in Training
Protégé
#3 - Low-Quality Job Titles and/or Job Title Variations
Defined as job titles that contain extra information, clickbait, or symbols. Jobs that violate this guideline do not receive organic (free) visibility.
In the Insurance industry, we commonly see jobs posted with job titles that include exclamation points, question marks, are in all caps, or have benefits/requirements listed in addition to the job title.
For example, “Sales Representative - $1000 SIGN ON BONUS!!!” or “Are you looking for a steady Sales Career?” could be flagged for several reasons:
Listing benefits in your title can be considered clickbait, and often prevents employers from receiving the organic traffic they were hoping for. Extra information should be listed only in your job description and/or benefits.
The capitalization and exclamation points can be perceived by job seekers as “spam” and can actually discourage them from applying, as it looks like the ad has been posted by an untrustworthy source.
A good tip to follow in creating a job title is to think about what title this person will have when hired into the role, leaving any other details in the job description.
Job title variations are defined as one job opening posted multiple times with different titles. For example, an employer would be violating this policy if they posted a job for an ‘Insurance Producer’, then posted 3 more jobs for ‘Licensed Salesperson’, ‘Sales Agent’, and ‘Insurance P&C Producer’.
Employers should only post 1 job ad per open position per office location.
#4 - Low-Quality Job Ad
Jobs are considered low-quality if they lack information or possess misleading, spam-like content. Low-quality ads do not receive organic (free) visibility on the job boards.
This can be jobs that:
Include information irrelevant to the job itself/consist of spam-like verbiage:
Use of all capital letters
Abbreviated language (ie. LMK or ASAP)
Excessive punctuation (ie. ??? or !!!!)
Lacks crucial information, leaving the candidate uncertain about one or more of the following:
Available benefits
Role responsibilities
Required experience
Possible salary
The work schedule
A well-crafted job ad should include all of these essential details to promote visibility and quality applicants.
Your salary range should contain only guaranteed pay and should be justified in the benefits section. If there is variable pay, bonuses or commissions, explain how it works in the benefits section of your job ad, but do not include these values to conflate the salary range with potential based on additional variable pay. Best practice - ensure the candidate will have no questions about how or when they will be paid.
Your salary range should just include your minimum and maximum base pay values based on experience. (Keep these two values within a $20,000 difference from low to high.)
Use the Benefits section to explain additional compensation in terms of bonus opportunities, commission structure, or other variable pay.
Though it’s not against any guidelines, not listing a salary can be an issue as well. We understand wanting to remain private with what you are willing to offer; however, if you do not include your own salary range, the job boards will estimate one for you, which may or may not be accurate to what you are willing to offer.
#5 - Reposting Policy
The Reposting Policy is defined as excessive, habitual job reposting - identified when an employer posts a job that recently existed, or still exists in their account.
Employers should only repost jobs that truly need it - when a role hasn’t been filled or a reasonable amount of time has passed since the original posting (ie. 14 days with no traffic).
If your ad does hit the 14 days with no traffic mark, there is likely a violation present within the ad, or your ad is not competitive. Please reach out to our support team to help ensure your ad is of the best possible quality before reposting.
#6 - Appropriate Use of Locations
Jobs should be posted to the most specific and accurate location possible. Location variations are prohibited on the job boards. A location variation is defined as any job posted outside of the true working location.
For example, if an employer is looking for a CSR to work on-site at their office in Royal Oak, MI, they should not try to expand their reach by posting the same job in Detroit, MI. Both job ads risk lowered visibility as they would be redundant, therefore hidden from candidate search results.
#7 - Commission Only Policy
Commission-only jobs that are remote positions, or contain misleading salary information do not receive organic (free) visibility on Indeed and will receive little to no visibility on other major job boards. Jobs that fit into this category require sponsorship.
If there is variable pay, bonuses, or commissions, explain how it works in the benefits section of your job ad, but do not include these values to conflate the salary range with potential based on additional variable pay.
#8 - Duplicate Posting Policy
This can be defined as jobs posted directly to the job board and also through the employer ATS. Only the direct source will receive visibility.
For example, if you post a job directly on Indeed and then post that same job in IdealTraits, the version posted directly on Indeed will receive visibility and the version posted through IdealTraits will be flagged as duplicate content.
If you have any additional questions regarding this article please feel free to reach out, we are here to help.
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