How to get notified when a company posts a new role

There are three ways to hear about new roles at a specific company: a job-board alert, a web-page monitor pointed at the company's careers page, or a tool that reads the company's job listings directly and filters them for you. Job-board alerts only see roles the company posts to that board. Page monitors tell you that something on the careers page changed. Reading the listings directly means you hear about the new roles that match what you're looking for, and nothing else.

Watching more than a couple of companies? Follow them in Refine with role and location filters, and see only the new roles that fit. Here's how, in Option 3 below.

Which one you need depends on how many companies you're watching and how much noise you're willing to sort through.

Three ways to get alerts, and what each one watches

Why the careers page is the source to watch

A company's own careers page is the one place every opening has to appear. Many companies run that page on a hiring system such as Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby or Workday, and post to job boards selectively, later or not at all.

You can usually tell which system a company uses from the address of its job listings or apply links:

Some companies put their own domain in front of these, so check the apply link on an individual role if the careers page itself looks custom.

Option 1: a job-board alert

If the company posts everything to LinkedIn, a LinkedIn job alert may be all you need. Search LinkedIn Jobs for the company, add your role and location filters, and turn on the alert for that search. LinkedIn explains the current steps and settings in its help article on job alerts.

Good for: large employers that post every role to LinkedIn. Watch out for: roles that only appear on the company's own site, and alerts that mix in similar roles from other companies.

Option 2: a page monitor on the careers page

Page-change monitors such as Visualping and Distill.io watch any web page and email you when it changes. They work on almost any careers page, including custom-built ones.

To keep the noise down:

1. Point the monitor at the page that lists the jobs, not the company's general careers landing page.
2. Select only the area that contains the job list, if the tool lets you.
3. Use a keyword condition (for example "designer" or "London") if the tool offers one.
4. Check less often. Daily is enough for almost every job search.

Good for: a few companies with unusual or custom careers pages. Watch out for: alerts when nothing relevant changed, and roles that load in a way the monitor can't see.

Option 3: follow the company with role and location filters

This is the approach Refine is built around. Instead of watching the page, Refine reads each company's job listings, keeps track of what's new, and shows you only the openings that match your filters.

1. Find the company. Search for it by name in Refine. If it isn't there yet, add its public careers page address and Refine will start collecting its openings.
2. Follow it with filters. Choose what you care about: role keywords, department, level, location, and remote or on-site. A filter like "Product, Senior, London or Remote" keeps you to the roles you'd actually apply for.
3. Review new openings. New matches appear on your dashboard and on the Following page, marked unread until you've looked at them.
4. Save the ones worth pursuing. Add an opening to your board, and it moves with you through applying, interviews and offers.

Refine checks each company's listings about once a day. It reads listings from the most common hiring systems, including Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday, SmartRecruiters, iCIMS, BambooHR, Recruitee and Rippling, as well as many companies' own careers pages.

New matches in the app are included on the Free plan. Daily or weekly email digests of new matches are part of Plus. See pricing for details.

Good for: a list of specific companies where you only want the roles that fit. Watch out for: companies whose careers pages Refine can't read yet. For those, a page monitor is a reasonable backup.

When another option is enough

You don't need a dedicated tool for every situation:

• One or two companies that post everything to LinkedIn: use a LinkedIn alert.
• A company with an unusual careers site: use a page monitor on its job list.
• A data project, not a job search: the hiring systems' public job board APIs, or a scraping service, are built for that.

What to do when an alert arrives

An alert is only useful if it turns into a decision. When a new role comes in:

1. Confirm it's live. Open the role on the company's own site and check the location and level.
2. Decide quickly. Save it, or dismiss it. Don't leave it sitting unread in your inbox.
3. Keep everything in one place. The usual failure isn't missing the alert. It's having the alert in email, notes in a document and applications in a spreadsheet, and losing track of which is which.

A 15-minute weekly routine

• Review every new opening from the companies you follow.
• Save the roles worth pursuing, and dismiss the rest.
• Remove any company that no longer fits what you want.
• Tighten a filter that's sending you too many near-misses.
• Add one company you've been meaning to watch.

Common questions

How quickly will I hear about a new role?

It depends on how often the tool checks. LinkedIn lets you choose how often its alerts arrive, and page monitors check as often as your plan allows. Refine checks each followed company's listings about once a day.

Can I get alerts for companies that use Workday?

Yes. Workday careers sites are supported in Refine, and page monitors can watch them too. Workday pages load their listings with scripts, so make sure your page monitor can read pages like that.

Do I need a LinkedIn account?

Only for LinkedIn alerts. Page monitors and Refine work directly from the company's careers page.

Start with companies

Pick three companies you'd say yes to tomorrow, and set one role filter for each. That's enough to stop refreshing career pages. Start with Refine for free.