Employment and Recruitment Advertising, Done Properly
Advertising jobs and employer brands, including where and how vacancies are promoted.
Samir Haddad
The key figures
- Protected characteristics
- ads may not express preferences based on them
- Targeting
- platforms restrict targeting for employment ads
- Age
- excluding older workers from ad audiences raises legal risk
- Records
- employers may need to retain recruitment records
Why this is worth getting right
Recruitment advertising is subject to anti-discrimination law, including how ads are targeted online.
Do this, not that
Do
- Use employment special ad categories where required
- Review ad copy for coded language
- Advertise widely rather than narrowly targeting
- Keep records of job advertisements
- Train recruiters on advertising rules
Don’t
- Age or gender targeting for job ads
- Phrases such as recent graduates in ad copy
- Narrow audience targeting for vacancies
- Unlogged recruitment campaigns
When to bring in help
Our advice Bring in help when running recruitment campaigns at scale.
Where this comes from
- U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices
- Meta Business Help Center — Special ad categories
The figures and practices above come from the sources listed.
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Where to go next
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