Where to post jobs and find candidates

The best place to post a job depends on the role. Use a general board for volume, a specialist board for people who want a certain kind of work, and referrals and communities for senior or niche roles. Then record where every candidate came from, so you can drop channels that do not produce interviews and keep the ones that produce hires.

This guide takes you through it in order: pick sources, match them to roles, prepare the job, post everywhere from one place, source candidates yourself and track what works.

Step 1: Know your source options

Dover Startup Jobs at jobs.dover.com lists jobs from verified, venture-backed startups only. It is free to post, and you post to it from Dover’s ATS after your company is approved. Wellfound is the former AngelList Talent. Affinity boards change often, so open each one and confirm it is active and takes employer listings before you rely on it.

Step 2: Match sources to the role

Match the channel to how the candidate looks for work.

• Engineers: referrals, a startup board, and technical communities. Passive candidates are common, so direct outreach matters. See how to source candidates.
• Product and design: startup boards, referrals, and design or product communities.
• Sales, customer success and marketing: a general board for volume plus a startup or specialist board; add referrals for senior hires.
• Operations and support: general boards usually perform best; keep the posting short and clear on pay and location.
• Remote roles: a remote board plus a general board, with time zones stated.
• Interns and new grads: university career centers and Handshake, posted early in the academic calendar.
• Executives and first-of-their-kind hires: referrals and direct outreach first; boards second, or a vetted fractional recruiter.

If you are hiring your first person in a function, start with two sources, not six. You will learn more from watching two channels closely.

Step 3: Get the job ready to post

1. Write the job so it answers the questions candidates ask: what they will do, who they work with and the pay range. See how to write a job description.
2. Check your careers page. Candidates will look at it after they find you, so confirm it is current and links to the role. Online employer brand covers what else they will see.
3. Add screening questions for must-haves such as work authorization or location, so you do not read every application by hand.
4. Plan the source tag. Decide how you will label each source (a board name, “referral”, “event”) so the data stays clean from day one.

Step 4: Post to multiple sources

Posting to each board by hand is slow, and applicants end up in different inboxes with no record of where they came from. Dover’s ATS fixes that.

• Post to 50+ job boards from one screen. Open a job and go to its Job Boards tab. For boards marked one-click, such as LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Y Combinator Work at a Startup and Wellfound, Dover creates and manages the posting for you. For any other board, post manually and add the job’s Dover apply link so applicants still land in Dover. See Managing job boards and Job board integrations.
• Post to Dover Startup Jobs. If you are a venture-backed startup, apply once from the Job Boards tab. Dover reviews your answers within one business day, and after approval you can post any job to jobs.dover.com. See Dover Startup Jobs.
• Share a job anywhere. From the Job Boards tab you can share the job’s application link on LinkedIn, X and Facebook, send it by email or copy it for Slack. See Share a job.
• Review every applicant in one list. Applicants from every board appear in the job’s Applicants tab with their source, so you review once instead of in five inboxes. See Reviewing applicants.
• Keep the careers page current. Candidates who find you on a board often check your careers page next.

Step 5: Source candidates yourself and track them too

Boards bring people who are already looking. For the rest, source and refer.

• Source from LinkedIn. The Dover Sourcing Extension for Chrome adds a candidate from their LinkedIn profile to a job and lets you email them without leaving the page. Each candidate you source is added to the job’s Leads tab. See Dover Sourcing Extension and Sourcing candidates.
• Run outreach campaigns from the job’s Sourcing tab, one candidate at a time or from a list.
• Collect referrals. Invite coworkers, investors and friends to refer candidates, and track every referral on the job’s Referrals tab. See Referrals.
• Add candidates from events, communities and introductions by hand, and choose how they came in and where you found them, so they show up in your reports. See Adding candidates.
• Re-engage past applicants. The CRM lets you search everyone who has applied or been added to your jobs and keep in touch.

Step 6: Track where your candidates come from

You can only improve what you can see. Every candidate should carry two labels.

• Channel: how they came in, such as applied, sourced or referral.
• Source: where you found them, such as LinkedIn, Indeed, an agency or an event.

Dover records both for you where it can. Boards you post to set the source automatically, the sourcing extension records LinkedIn, and you choose both when you add a candidate by hand. Then use Reporting & Analytics in Dover:

The data updates every 24 hours, and the page-view charts start in June 2026. See Reporting & Analytics for the full list of charts, and pricing for how far back your plan’s history goes.

Step 7: Decide which sources are working

Review each source after a role closes and every quarter. Get the numbers from Hires by Source, Funnel Conversion and the Candidate Report in Reporting & Analytics, then compare what each source produced, not how many people it sent.

An example

These numbers are made up to show the idea.

• Source A, a general job board: 200 applicants, 4 interviews and 0 hires. That is 2 interviews for every 100 applicants, and nobody hired, even though it was the busiest source.
• Source B, referrals: 5 applicants, 3 interviews and 1 hire. That is 60 interviews for every 100 people, and a hire, even though it sent the fewest.

Source B is the one to keep. It produced the outcome you wanted, and Source A only produced reading time.

Keep, cut or test

• Keep a source if it produces hires, or if a higher share of its people reach an interview than your average.
• Cut a source if it sends volume but no interviews after two roles, or if reviewing its applicants costs more time than it returns.
• Test again if you have too little data to judge, for example fewer than 20 people or a single role. Run it for one more role before you decide.

Change one source at a time, so you know what caused the result.

What has changed recently

• More low-quality and AI-written applications. Easy-apply boards and AI tools make it cheap to apply to anything. Use must-have screening questions, review in one list, and if your volume needs it, tools such as knockout questions and AI applicant scoring in Dover’s ATS (Premium). Check the plans.
• Stale postings cost trust. Candidates distrust roles that never close. Close or refresh postings when the role is filled or paused, and state when you expect to close applications.
• Pay ranges belong in the posting. More places require them, and boards prompt for them. Put the same range on every board. See compensation requirements for job postings.
• Tell candidates about AI screening. Some places require notice when AI is used in hiring. See the NYC Local Law 144 guide.
• Source quality varies by board and changes often. Boards open, close and change pricing, so re-check each one before you pay, and let your own reports decide.

If you are short on time to run all this, a vetted fractional recruiter from Dover’s Marketplace can source, screen and manage the sources for you while you stay in your tracker.

Frequently asked questions

How many job boards should I post to?

Start with two or three that fit the role: one general board for volume, one specialist or startup board for people who want that kind of work, and referrals. Add boards only when you can see whether they produce interviews and hires.

Are free job boards good enough?

For many roles, yes. Startup boards, communities and referrals are often free or low cost and reach people who already want to work at a small company. Paid placements are worth testing for hard-to-fill roles once you know your free channels are not enough.

How do I know which source works best?

Record the source on every candidate, then compare each source by the share of candidates who reach an interview and the number who become hires, not by raw applicant count. In Dover, Reporting & Analytics shows hires by source and by channel.

What is the difference between a channel and a source?

A channel is how a candidate came in, such as applied, sourced or referral. A source is where you found them, such as LinkedIn, Indeed or an agency. Track both, because a great source can still be a weak channel.

Can I post to many job boards at once?

Yes. An applicant tracking system can send one job to many boards. Dover's ATS posts to 50+ job boards from a single place, and applicants land in one list with the board recorded as their source.

Who can post to Dover Startup Jobs?

Verified, venture-backed startups. Your company is approved once, and then you can post any of your jobs from Dover's ATS. Dover Startup Jobs is for startups only, so other employers should use general and specialist boards.