A common complaint in the recruitment world is that platforms like Seek, job aggregators and even LinkedIn are the reason hiring feels so broken today. It is an understandable frustration, but it misses the real issue entirely.

Employers are drowning in AI-generated applications that barely match the role. Job seekers submit application after application and hear nothing back. Roles sit open for months while everyone involved grows increasingly frustrated. The pain is real, but the platforms carrying the job ads are not the cause.

Job boards and LinkedIn are, at their core, advertising businesses. They are paid to post jobs and generate visibility, not to run a recruitment process. At best, they sit at the very top of the hiring funnel. What happens after that ad goes live is entirely down to the employer and their recruitment process, not the platform that hosted the listing.

Blaming a job board for a broken hiring process is a bit like blaming an online marketplace because you could not sell an old set of golf clubs, and had to deal with time-wasting buyers along the way. The marketplace did its job. What happened next was on you.

If you want to improve your hiring outcomes, the better questions to ask are internal ones. What happens on your end once an ad goes live? How quickly are strong candidates actually contacted? What is your process for communicating with candidates who are not a fit, so they do not disappear into silence?

Are you activating your employer brand and reaching the right people before you even post a role?

The real fixes to a fractured hiring process live in your own end-to-end workflow, not in switching job boards or complaining about advertising fees. Spend your time and resources there, and the frustration on both sides of the hiring table will start to ease.