When a job goes up, the first applications arrive within hours. Recruiters often start reading from the top of the pile, and some stop once they have a shortlist. Applying on day one doesn’t guarantee anything, but applying on day twenty often means nobody reads your application at all.
So the goal is simple: see jobs while they’re new, and spend your time on those.
Use the date filter on every job site
Most job sites can filter by date, but the option is easy to miss and it resets when you start a new search.
- LinkedIn: under Date posted, choose Past 24 hours. The other options are Past week, Past month and Any time.
- Indeed: under Date posted, choose Last 24 hours. You can also pick 3, 7 or 14 days.
On LinkedIn the filter adds f_TPR=r86400 to the address (86,400 seconds is one day). Bookmark that search so you don’t have to set it again.
Check that “new” really means new
A date filter shows when a listing was posted on that site, which isn’t always when the job opened.
- Reposts. An employer can repost an old job, and it shows up as new. LinkedIn sometimes labels these “Reposted”.
- Promoted and sponsored jobs are placed by payment, not by date, so they can appear at the top of a “newest first” list.
- Aggregated listings can be copied days after the original went up.
The most reliable date is on the employer’s own careers page. Applicant tracking systems such as Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby record when a job was first published. Jobly reads that date directly. See how Jobly checks dates.
Go straight to company career pages
If you know which companies you’d like to work for, check their careers pages directly. Most tech companies use one of a few systems, and the addresses follow a pattern:
boards.greenhouse.io/companyjobs.lever.co/companyjobs.ashbyhq.com/company
These pages list jobs the moment they’re published, with no promoted listings in between. The catch is that checking 30 companies by hand every morning takes a long time. That’s the job Jobly does for you: it reads the career pages of hundreds of companies, plus three remote job boards, every two hours.
Let new jobs come to you
Checking is the slow part, so hand it off:
- Set alerts on the big sites with narrow searches: one role, one location or remote, and only a few keywords. Broad alerts bury the good jobs.
- Use Jobly for tech roles. Pick your roles once and Jobly checks every 60 to 90 minutes, then shows a desktop alert when a new match appears. It needs no account.
- Set a daily time. Morning works well, because many jobs are published during the employer’s working day. Ten focused minutes beats an hour of scrolling.
Apply quickly, but not carelessly
Speed only helps if the application is good. Keep a base résumé and a short, reusable cover note, then change two or three lines to match each job. That way you can apply well on the same day.
In short
- Turn on Past 24 hours on every site, and save the search.
- Treat “Reposted”, “Promoted” and “Sponsored” with caution.
- Check the employer’s own careers page for the real date.
- Let alerts, or Jobly, do the checking so you can spend your time applying.