On a Monday morning a staffing agency receives three applications for a warehouse team leader role that was filled three weeks ago. The advert is still online on a job board that nobody remembers posting to. At the same time, a colleague preparing a similar vacancy for another client wants to know which channel brought in the good applicants last time and which version of the text was used. The text was written in an email, posted by a colleague who has since moved to another branch, and the only trace is a screenshot. Nobody did anything wrong; the advert simply lived outside the vacancy. This article explains why every vacancy in your Applicant Tracking System needs a recorded job advert history: why advert history gets lost, what it is and is not, what to record, how to approve the text before it goes live, how to keep live adverts in line with the vacancy, how to link applications to the advert that produced them and how to check with your own data whether your advertising is really visible.
A recorded advert history matters most for staffing agencies, which publish many adverts, often for the same profiles, and need to know what is live at any moment. Recruitment agencies publish on behalf of clients and need to show what was published in the client’s name, or without it. In-house recruitment teams post on their own careers page, internally and on external channels, and secondment firms advertise recurring consultant profiles. Even executive search firms that publish a senior role now and then face the same question: what did we say in public, where, and when?
Why advert history gets lost
- The advert text is written in a document or email and pasted straight into a job board, so the system never sees it
- Each channel is managed in its own account, by whoever happened to post the advert
- Changes to the text are made on the channel itself, so the earlier version disappears
- When a vacancy is filled or closed, nobody has a list of where it is still online
- Applications are recorded as “job board” or “website”, without saying which advert they responded to
None of this is careless work. Advertising is often treated as a quick task at the start of a vacancy, while the advert is in fact the first public promise your team makes about the role.
What a job advert history is, and what it is not
A job advert history is the list of every publication of one vacancy, kept in the same system as the vacancy: on which channel, with which version of the text, from which date until which date, and who published and ended it. It shows at any moment which adverts are live, what they say and which applications they brought in.
It is not a marketing report, and it does not replace the statistics a job board offers in its own account. It is the vacancy’s own record of what was said in public. That record matters because the advert is what candidates respond to: the requirements, the location, the hours and, where you state them, the pay range or terms. Pay transparency and equal treatment rules in your country may set requirements for what an advert says and what you tell applicants, so record exactly what was published. This article is not legal advice; what applies is what your own policy, contracts and the rules in your country say.
What to record
Keep the structure simple enough that the whole team fills it in the same way:
- Channel — careers page, a named job board, social media, an internal posting, a school or a professional network; one entry per channel, chosen from a fixed list
- Text version — the exact text that was published, saved as a version with a date; a change creates a new version rather than overwriting the old one
- Published on and by — the date the advert went live and the named colleague who published it
- Ended on and why — the date the advert was taken down, with a short standard reason: filled, closed, on hold, replaced by a new version or end of the agreed period
- What was stated — location, hours, contract type and any pay range or terms as published, so what you later tell candidates matches what they read
- Reference — the link or reference number of the advert on the channel, so applications can be matched to it
- Applications per publication — recorded through the candidate source at the first application, with the channel and the text version
Approve the text before it goes live
The advert text should come from the structured brief, not from memory. Check that the requirements in the text are the must-haves agreed in the brief, that the wording is neutral and does not exclude people for reasons that have nothing to do with the job, and that location, hours and any pay range match what the client or hiring manager agreed. For an in-house team, the advert is part of the approval before sourcing. For an agency, the client approves the text and decides whether its name may be shown or the advert stays anonymous. Record who approved the text and on which date, together with the version they approved.
Keep live adverts in line with the vacancy
An advert is a working part of the vacancy, not something you publish once and forget. When the brief changes — other hours, another location, a different pay range — update every live publication and record the new version with its date. When the vacancy is put on hold, pause the adverts. When the vacancy is filled or closed, record the close reason and end every live advert on the same day. A simple overview of live adverts on vacancies that are already filled or closed should always be empty.
Some applications will still arrive after an advert has ended, because job boards and search engines take time to update. Give those applicants an honest and timely answer within your first review deadline, and consider whether they fit another open vacancy before you reject them.
Link applications to the advert
When every application records the channel and the text version it responded to, you can see more than volume. You can see which channel brings candidates who reach the shortlist and a placement, not only who applies. Combined with your standardised rejection reasons, the history also shows whether a text attracts the wrong profile: if many applicants from one advert are rejected for the same reason, the text is probably unclear about that point. Change the text, record the new version, and compare.
When a vacancy reopens or repeats
Staffing agencies and secondment firms often advertise the same profile again and again. With a recorded history you can reuse the version that worked, see where it ran and how long, and avoid starting from a blank page. When a vacancy reopens because a placement did not work out, the history shows what has already been published, and the talent pool shows runner-up candidates you can contact before you advertise again. Record a reopened vacancy as a new publication period, so your time-to-fill figures stay honest.
Let the system help
Several advert steps repeat in every vacancy and suit automation: ending or flagging all live publications when the vacancy status changes to filled, closed or on hold, a reminder when an advert has been live past the target fill date, and a warning when the brief changes while the live text does not. An artificial intelligence helper can draft a first version of the text from the brief, suggest clearer wording or prepare a translation. The recruiter still checks, approves and publishes; artificial intelligence does not replace recruiters and does not publish or change an advert on its own.
Common mistakes to avoid
- The text only lives on the job board — when the advert ends, the text disappears with it, and nobody can show what was promised
- Overwriting instead of versioning — without earlier versions you cannot tell which text an applicant responded to
- Forgetting to take adverts down — candidates who apply for a filled role lose trust in your firm and your client
- Vague channels — “internet” or “online” as a channel tells you nothing about where to advertise next time
- Counting applications, not outcomes — the best channel is the one that leads to shortlists and placements, not the one with the most clicks
Questions teams ask
- Do we need to keep the full text of every version? — Keep every version that was actually published; it is usually short, and it is what candidates responded to
- What about adverts the client publishes itself? — Record them as a channel with the client as publisher, and the dates as far as you know them, so applications through that route are matched too
- How long do we keep the history? — Follow your own policy; the advert text rarely contains personal data, but the applications linked to it do, and they keep their own retention date
- Does this also apply to internal postings? — Yes, record an internal posting as its own channel with its own dates, so you can show when colleagues had the chance to apply
Check it with your own data
Count from your own records, per vacancy and per channel: how many publications there were, how many adverts are still live on vacancies that are filled or closed, how many vacancies received applications without any recorded advert, how many applications came from each channel and how many of those reached the shortlist and a placement, and the time from first publication to the first suitable application. Look at those numbers alongside your time-to-fill, and review open adverts in your weekly pipeline review. Report the number of vacancies and applications behind each figure. Do not compare with industry averages; the gap between what you published and what anyone in your team can find is the number that matters.
A practical start
- Agree a fixed list of channels and end reasons with your recruiters
- Record every new advert in the vacancy, with the text version, the dates and the colleague who published it
- Add approval of the advert text to your brief or approval step
- End every live advert on the same day a vacancy is filled or closed
- Check the list of live adverts once a week, starting with vacancies that are on hold, filled or closed
What you publish, you can show
An advert is the first thing a candidate sees of a vacancy, and often the only thing they read before they apply. Keep every publication in the same system as the vacancy, give it a channel, a text version, dates and an owner, approve the text before it goes live, end it when the role is filled and link every application to the advert that brought it in. Explore the product or book a demo — we show how vacancies, advert versions and candidate sources are set up in BoldATS for your segment.