What Is a Qualified Applicant?

A qualified applicant is someone whose skills, experience, certifications, and work background align with the core requirements of a role and who is likely to succeed in the position. Qualified applicants are not simply people who apply; they are candidates who match the job's essential criteria and are actively interested in the opportunity.

Core Strategies for Attracting Qualified Applicants

• Use job titles candidates actually search for rather than highly customized internal titles.
• Focus on industry-specific, association-based, and local recruiting channels instead of relying only on large job boards.
• Prioritize quality of reach over quantity of applications.
• Make jobs easier to discover through searchable language and relevant skills.
• Clearly explain internal titles and role expectations early in the hiring process.

How To Get Qualified Applicants Without Indeed

I spent the first half of my career in marketing for recruiting technology. The most consistently reported problem that folks faced was that they couldn’t get enough qualified applicants. Did they get people to apply? Sometimes. But in certain niche fields or regions? They were getting 0 applicants. I mean, that’s why everyone knows what I’m talking about when I say I worked at Monster.com. Knowing that this was a problem back in 2010, I was surprised that all of the questions I was asked at Tri-State SHRM in 2026 were about the same issue. At the end of my session, folks were asking how and where to market my jobs to get more qualified applicants. Specifically, they wanted to know how to do it without Indeed.

I will admit, I wasn’t expecting that. I guess some part of me assumed from spending too much time scrolling my LinkedIn feed that everyone is overwhelmed with applicants and bots. I was wrong. Sure, a lot of tech companies - especially the big names that everyone knows - are getting overwhelmed with applicants. But that’s not the story for everyone outside of tech. Reminder, this wasn’t rural Nevada (no shade y’all). This was the Tri-State area: Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York City. 

The Job Board Swap: Go Local 

Pretty much everyone was struggling with the same thing. It’s really expensive to use the big job boards and the prices are just going up. One woman told me her price went up 3x year over year. “We won’t be resigning,” she said with a sigh. 

My initial thought? If job boards were working for you at some point, go local. Focus on public and private, industry or location specific  job boards. Think about the job board for an association in your area, a local job board, or a local career fair host’s website. This strategy works because people choose to be a part of these groups, often with a paid component. That means they have more trust than another spam recruiter text from ZipRecruiter. 

Your challenge then? Making sure the job is findable. Will people who aren’t getting the monthly member newsletter from these groups even find your job? Remember you don’t need to be found by everyone. You need the right people to find you. Recruiting is not marketing. We don’t need a bigger pile of unqualified candidates. We only need 1 candidate and your odds of finding them in this smaller pool are higher.  

Making Your Job Post Findable 

The easiest thing to do is a job title analysis to find the role's marketing job title. If you aren't familiar with a marketing job title, you can read more about it here. Basically, it's the job title people search most often to find a certain skill set. See, all job titles are made up. People literally just pick them. There’s a chance not everyone uses the title VP of Client Development and Relationship Northeast Parcel. *Note sarcasm* If you use the hyper-specific title, you lose all the benefit of having a strong career site because people may never even find your job. 

Easy way to test: Google the job title and the word resume. Click on the image search results. If you would not hire those people, you need to optimize your job title by entering the skills you’re looking for into AI and asking for 3 to 5 titles. Repeat this task until you start seeing qualified resumes in your search results. Then, use Google trends to compare which one gets the most traffic. More on that here.

Wait, I Can Just Change Job Titles?

As I mentioned, all job titles are made up. The most important step here is that if you use this marketing title to become more findable, you need to disclose that early and often. This is where a simple recruiting email automation can be your best friend. When you send the template to ask people for an interview, add a line about the title. 

This is a marketing job title. We use it so great people can find the role. Internally, we refer to this role as [add your internal title here]. Let me know any questions you have when we chat. 

I like to attach the job post here, too. But know what I’m not going to do? Waste my time or money posting on Indeed. 

This is the second in my road trip series. I spent the last month traveling the country and sitting with recruiters everywhere from Alaska to Connecticut and Louisiana talking about what’s really happening. I turned this into a series you can read while I’m out on medical leave until June. This post was written at Tri-State SHRM after a workshop on How To Write A Job Post With AI. If you want to bring this session to your group, you can book a time to talk when I’m back.