Job Posting

What a job posting is

A job posting (إعلان الوظيفة) is a text that an establishment publishes in a public channel to announce an open vacancy that it intends to fill. It states what the job is, what the establishment requires of the person who will hold it, and how an interested person applies. Two features define a posting: the publication is public, and the establishment means to fill the vacancy. A posting is addressed to people the establishment does not yet know.

Five other documents or procedures are close to a posting, and each differs from it:

• A job requisition. It is an internal approval that opens the vacancy and estimates its budget before hiring starts, as covered under job requisition. The posting follows the requisition.
• A job description. It is an internal document that sets out the duties and requirements of the job in full. A posting is an extract from the job description, written for the applicant.
• A job offer. It is what the establishment gives to the candidate it has chosen after the interviews, as covered under job offer. A posting attracts candidates, and the offer goes to the one candidate chosen.
• A ghost job. It is a published ad with no vacancy behind it, as covered under ghost jobs.
• A realistic job preview. It tells a candidate how demanding the role is before the candidate accepts it, as covered under realistic job preview. A posting may carry part of that preview and does not replace it.

The elements of a job posting

The elements below are a practical outline of a complete posting. They are not a statutory list:

• Job title and location. The title under which the labour market recognises the job, the city, and the working pattern: on site, remote or mixed.
• Duties. What the holder will actually do in the first weeks, written with verbs and not with adjectives.
• Requirements. The qualification, experience and skill that the job needs. The list distinguishes what is essential from what is only preferred.
• Pay and benefits. They appear if the establishment announces them, and their wording matches what the job offer will say.
• How to apply and by when. The link or the email address, the closing date, and the stages that follow an application.

From the job description to the posting

Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation of the Labor Law, in implementation of Article 42 of the Labor Law, requires every employer to prepare a professional description of the duties and responsibilities of its jobs and of the requirements for filling them. The description must follow the Saudi Unified Classification of Occupations and the national professional standards. That classification is covered under Saudi occupational classification. How a description is built on what workers actually do is covered under job analysis.

Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation concerns the description and not the posting. We suggest that the establishment draft each posting from its approved description, and not from a copy of a similar job in another establishment. The title and the requirements in the posting are then the ones that will appear later in the contract. This is a practical suggestion.

What the texts say about the content of a posting

Equal opportunity. Item 4 of Article 61 of the Labor Law requires the employer to refrain from anything that nullifies or weakens equality of opportunity or of treatment in employment and occupation. The conduct it covers includes exclusion, distinction or preference among applicants for work or among the employer’s workers, on the basis of race, colour, sex, age, disability, social status or any other form of discrimination. The provision addresses applicants for work (المتقدمين للعمل), so it reaches the stage before hiring. Whether it applies to a particular phrase in a posting, such as a requirement of a sex or an age with no link to the duties of the job, is our reading and not the text of the provision.

Occupations reserved for Saudis. Item first (أولًا) of Article 11 of the Implementing Regulation provides that a non Saudi worker may not be employed in eighteen occupations that the item names. It also provides that the duties of those occupations may not be assigned to a non Saudi worker under any other title. Item second (ثانيًا) of Article 11 of the Implementing Regulation provides that work in any activity, occupation or job is restricted to Saudis as the Ministry decides. A posting for those occupations, or for work that the Ministry restricts to Saudis, follows that text when it refers to the nationality of applicants. The preference of the establishment does not decide the question.

The vacancy statement to the Ministry. Paragraph 1 of Article 25 of the Labor Law requires every employer to send the Ministry a statement of the vacant and newly created jobs, their types, their location, the pay assigned to them and the conditions for filling them. The employer must send it within fifteen days of the date on which the job falls vacant or is created. The statement is a notification to the Ministry and not an announcement to the public. The type, location, pay and conditions that it lists are also items that appear among the posting elements above, so the establishment can draft both documents from the same job description.

A worked example: the date of the vacancy statement

Suppose that the service of a finance employee at a company in Jeddah ended and that the post fell vacant on 3 March 2026. Article 25 of the Labor Law counts the fifteen days from the date of the vacancy. The Article does not say whether the day of the vacancy is the first of the fifteen days. Two counts are possible:

• If the day of the vacancy is the first of the fifteen days, the last day is 17 March 2026.
• If counting starts on the next day, the last day is 18 March 2026.

The two counts differ by one day. The practical caution is to send the statement before the earlier of the two possible last days, and not on that day. The dates in the example are Gregorian for simplicity, and the period is fifteen days in either calendar. Article 25 of the Labor Law uses the word «يوماً» (days) and does not distinguish calendar days from working days.

Posting in a channel and the vacancy statement to the Ministry

In the sources we reviewed, we found no text that makes posting an ad in a private channel a substitute for the statement that Article 25 of the Labor Law requires. We also found no text that fixes the content of a job posting or that requires pay to be announced in it.

Jadarat (جدارات) is the unified national employment platform, and vacancies directed to Saudis are advertised on it. Article 25 of the Labor Law does not name Jadarat. Article 7 of the Implementing Regulation links the employment channels of the Human Resources Development Fund to Articles 22 to 25 of the Labor Law, and it does not mention Jadarat either.

How a posting can fail

A posting can fail because of what it is built on before it fails because of its wording. Three forms are described here:

• A posting that combines two jobs. It asks the holder to perform the duties of a finance job and of an administrative job in one line. People who suit only one of the two apply, and the establishment screens all the applications against a standard that matches none of the applicants.
• A requirement that no duty supports. The establishment writes a condition because the previous job carried it. Suitable people may not apply because of the condition, and the establishment does not learn that they held back.
• A posting with no closing date and no next stage. The applicant does not know when the posting closes or what follows an application, so the applicant waits without knowing for what. The applicant’s experience is affected before the applicant meets anyone.

An example: tracing each requirement to a duty

Suppose that an original posting for an accounts payable accountant at a company in Dammam listed three requirements: a qualification in accounting, ten years of experience in accounts payable, and good English. The posting received 120 applications. The company then asked of each requirement which duty written in the job description needs it. The requirements and the figures are assumed, to show the method.

• A qualification in accounting. The duty is preparing entries and reconciling supplier statements. The requirement remains.
• Good English. The duty is corresponding with foreign suppliers, which appears in the assumed description. The requirement remains.
• Ten years of experience. The duty is following supplier invoices from receipt to payment, and the assumed description states two years of experience in accounts payable as the level that this duty needs. No duty needs ten years, so the revised posting asks for two years instead.

Suppose that, of the 120 applications, 45 carry ten years of experience or more and 104 carry two years or more. Under the original requirement, 45 applications reach screening. Under the revised requirement, 104 reach screening, which is about 2.3 times as many, since 104 ÷ 45 ≈ 2.31.

The calculation leaves out anyone who held back because of the ten year requirement. Such a person is not among the 120 applications, so the real effect of the requirement may be larger than the figures show. The figures in the example are assumed and say nothing about the labour market.

Internal postings and external postings

The same text can be published in two places: inside the establishment for the people who work there, and outside it for the people who do not. Which comes first is an organisational decision. An internal posting opens the vacancy first to people who know the establishment, and that movement is covered under internal mobility. An external posting widens the circle. A third route sends the vacancy to people through current employees, as covered under employee referral. The establishment can decide before publication who reads the posting first, so that the order is not left to chance.

Before a posting is published

The checklist below is practical. It does not state conditions found in a text:

• Title. It matches the title in the approved description and the title under which the labour market recognises the job.
• Requirements. Each requirement has a duty in the description that supports it.
• Pay. If the posting announces pay, the amount is consistent with what the job offer will say.
• Closing. The closing date is fixed, and a named person withdraws the posting from every channel.
• Receipt. The establishment knows who receives each application and within what period the applicant is answered.

What a posting measures after publication

Three figures measure a posting, and each answers a question:

• Where the hires came from. This figure is covered under source of hire.
• How many applicants finish. It is the share of the people who started an application and completed it, as covered under application completion rate.
• How long the posting stays up. It is the number of days that the posting remains published after the vacancy has been filled.

The last figure shows a posting that was never closed, which is the first of the situations described under ghost jobs. A posting that stays up after the vacancy has been filled keeps attracting applications for a job that no longer exists. The establishment’s closing procedure for a vacancy can state that the posting is withdrawn from every channel in which it was published, and not only from the channel on which it was first announced.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.