Comparing ZipRecruiter vs. Glassdoor for Employers Seeking Workers
With millions of unfilled job openings and a serious shortage of workers, businesses across the country are struggling to recruit the employees they need.
Is your business struggling to find qualified job candidates? In that case, you’ve no doubt considered using a popular online recruitment platform like ZipRecruiter or Glassdoor. But what’s the difference between the two? Which one is best for your needs?
In this guide, we’ll go in-depth and do a side-by-side comparison between these two platforms — how they work, what they cost and what audiences they’re aimed at.
Let’s start with an overview of each:
ZipRecruiter: Post a Job on Multiple Job Boards
ZipRecruiter is useful if you need a job opening to be posted widely so you can hire someone quickly. ZipRecruiter isn’t a job board itself. Instead, it’s a marketplace that allows employers to post a job opening to multiple online job boards at the same time.
ZipRecruiter uses artificial intelligence to decide where to post your job vacancies, and it uses its matching technology to analyze millions of data points to find the best potential matches for your job.
ZipRecruiter for Employers
It’s free for employers to try for four days. After that, there are various packages you can buy, depending on your needs. ZipRecruiter offers three different monthly plans, based on how many jobs you want to advertise.
You can pay extra for sponsored posts to give your job postings premium placement on job sites. There’s also a “traffic boost” option that allows you to send out job postings via email, attracting more applicants. You can also sort through resumes on your ZipRecruiter dashboard.
Once you post jobs, ZipRecruiter’s AI can promote your listings and send job alerts to candidates who are more likely to be interested and qualified. The AI tools can also help you right-size your recruitment efforts to keep your spending efficient and on budget.
The platform can also help you keep track of applicants, and it’ll help you integrate your current applicant tracking system into its platform.
ZipRecruiter for Job Seekers
If you’re on a job search, the site is free for job seekers. You can search for job posts based on factors like desired salary, location or various keywords.
You can post a profile on the site that potential employers can see. You can post your resume, references, social network handles or a profile picture, among other things.
Glassdoor: Employees Rate Employers
Glassdoor launched in 2008 as a company ratings site where employees and former employees could review the companies they worked for, and post their salaries for comparison. It has since expanded its offerings, and now attracts roughly 50 million visitors per month.
Glassdoor for Employers
You can claim your company on Glassdoor’s website and create a company profile for free. It’s a good way to build your brand. The free version allows you to post basic information about your company and what it does. Glassdoor’s paid plans offer more customization options.
For job listings, Glassdoor sends you to its sister website, Indeed.com, one of the biggest online job boards around for employers and job hunters alike. You can post up to 10 jobs free for seven days. Beyond that, though, you’ll need to pay.
Indeed’s hiring platform helps employers tap into that job board to find qualified candidates who are available. Recruiters can expedite the screening process, automatically moving candidates forward who indicate they meet preset conditions in hiring questionnaires.
Like ZipRecruiter, Indeed lets you pay to bump up the placement of your job posting in search results, and you can create targeted ads to advertise to more qualified candidates.
Glassdoor for Job Seekers
Glassdoor is free for job seekers, and the company profiles are useful in your job search. You can also read employees’ and former employees’ unvarnished reviews of each company, and guess what? Not all the reviews are positive! In fact, some of the reviews tend to be scathing. Reading them can be quite educational.
ZipRecruiter vs. Glassdoor: Pros and Cons
Each of these popular recruitment platforms have their pluses and minuses, depending on what you’re looking for:
ZipRecruiter’s Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Artificial intelligence helps you scale your recruiting efforts | Free trial only lasts four days |
| Can reach more than 100 job boards | No ability to post a company page |
| Has customizable job description templates for employers to use | Can be more expensive than other options |
Glassdoor’s Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Offers some basic job listings for free | The actual job listings are on a different site, Indeed |
| You can create a company profile with information you want prospective recruits to see | Prices aren’t posted online |
ZipRecruiter vs. Glassdoor: Applicant Tracking
Does your company use an applicant tracking system like Bullhorn, ClearCompany or Greenhouse? Both ZipRecruiter and Glassdoor work seamlessly with dozens of third-party applicant tracking systems.
Using ATS integration, these online platforms can help ensure that your job posts are up-to-date, eliminating friction for job seekers and making the interview process more efficient.
Both ZipRecruiter and Glassdoor’s ATS integration can also generate valuable data for employers, from monitoring job posting quality to helping you tap into a resume database. The analytics can show you how well candidates respond to your job alerts or job ads and help you uncover ways to improve them.
ZipRecruiter vs. Glassdoor: What It Costs
This is the most challenging part for job posters like you to grapple with, because there are so many different pricing options, and not all the prices are posted online. In some cases, you’ll need to ask each company’s sales department for a quote.
Free options are few. Both recruiting platforms offer free trials: ZipRecruiter lets you post jobs for free for four days. Glassdoor lets you post up to 10 job openings for free for seven days.
ZipRecruiter’s Pricing
ZipRecruiter has three monthly plans — Standard, Premium and Pro. Prices are based on how many jobs you need to post and how many job boards or job sites you want your job opportunities to be posted on. Prices start as low as $16 per day for one reusable job post.
“First we work with you to understand your specific hiring goals, strategy and budget,” ZipRecruiter says on its website. “From there, we customize your campaign based on the number of jobs you have, the type of jobs you need to fill, the location, and industry. Plans can be tailored for a monthly subscription or pay-for-performance depending on your hiring goals.”
Glassdoor’s Pricing
Through Glassdoor, you can post up to 10 jobs for free for seven days on its sister site, Indeed. Beyond that, though, you’ll need to pay for premium job placements.
Glassdoor has two paid plans — Standard and Select. For prices, you have to contact Glassdoor’s sales department.
With the Standard package, you can customize your company profile and do a keyword analysis of your company’s reviews, among other things. With the Select package, you get industry benchmark reports and audience targeting insights.
ZipRecruiter vs. Glassdoor: Customer Support
With ZipRecruiter, you can reach customer service via the phone, live chat or email. The website also has a thorough FAQ as well as “how to” guides.
Glassdoor has a “Contact Us” page on its website where you can send the company queries. There’s also a search bar that can help you find answers to your questions.
Resume Search
Want to do a resume search? ZipRecruiter has a vast resume database and provides unlimited resume searches for clients who purchase one of its premium plans. If you’ve purchased the cheapest plan, you’ll have to buy resume searches.
Glassdoor’s sister site, Indeed, also offers screening solutions to expedite the hiring process, without letting an unqualified candidate smooth-talk you into an interview.
The Bottom Line
If you’re an employer looking for an effective place to post a job, these are two solid options.
Glassdoor allows you to create a detailed company profile and assert some control over your brand. It also allows you to post jobs through its sister site, Indeed.
However, ZipRecruiter offers you the ability to get your job posting out to more than 100 job sites. Also, hiring managers and HR directors can take advantage of how ZipRecruiter’s AI streamlines the process of creating job postings, reaching qualified talent and tracking candidates.
Either choice can find you the employees you need.
Mike Brassfield ([email protected]) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
