The short answer, by where the listing lives
There is no single number, but there are two distinct patterns, and almost every listing you see belongs to one of them.
| Where the listing lives | Typical time live | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Big consumer boards (Indeed, LinkedIn) | Roughly 30 days, a listing expiry default rather than a hiring decision | Still open on day 28 says very little about whether anyone is still reading |
| Company careers page fed by an applicant tracking system (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday) | Often one to two weeks; gone the moment the requisition closes | The listing is a live signal, not a stale archive |
| Aggregators and “evergreen” talent pools | Indefinitely, by design | Not a real opening; it collects résumés for future roles |
A 2026 study that tracked postings across ten boards makes the gap concrete. On boards wired directly to an employer's tracking system, the median posting that closed was live for about eight days on Lever and about fourteen on Greenhouse. On Indeed and LinkedIn the closures clustered at the 30-day listing expiry, because that is when those boards remove a listing by default rather than when the employer decided to stop hiring.
The date on the listing is usually not the first posting date
On most boards, the visible date is a refresh date. Recruiters repost, edit the requisition, or renew the listing, and the date resets. A role that reads “posted 2 days ago” may have been open for two months with a small edit made on Tuesday.
This matters because it removes your only honest signal about how stale a role is. The one date that does not reset is the first time a given page was seen. That is why aggregators that track their own crawl history can show a “first seen” timestamp, and why a company's own careers page is usually the most truthful source — nothing there needs a renewal.
What actually ends a posting
A listing disappears for one of four reasons, and only one of them is good news for the employer:
- The requisition closed. The role was filled, or cancelled. On an ATS-fed board the listing vanishes the same day.
- The listing expired. The board's fixed window ended. On Indeed and LinkedIn this is a default, not a decision.
- Budget or headcount changed. The posting is pulled mid-search, sometimes after interviews have happened.
- Nobody remembered to take it down. The role is filled and the advert stays live for weeks.
Reason four is why applying blind to old listings is expensive. Your best-written application can land in a queue for a job that no longer exists.
Why the first two weeks do the heavy lifting
Applications are read in roughly the order they arrive, and the pile is smallest at the start. By the time a posting has been live for a month on a consumer board, the employer may have interviewed and made an offer without ever taking the advert down. Applying in week four is not unlucky; it is late.
The practical conclusion is not “apply to everything immediately”. It is that freshness should be one of the filters you use when choosing between roles you already want. Given two roles that both fit, the one posted four days ago is worth more of your evening than the one posted four weeks ago.
How to tell how old a job really is
Working with short lifespans instead of against them
You cannot slow hiring down, but you can flip which side of the window you are on. Two habits do most of the work. First, keep your résumé and a two-sentence template for the roles you actually want ready in advance, so the tailoring cost on a new posting is thirty minutes rather than two hours. Second, concentrate on sources that close fast, because a short lifespan is a feature: it means the thing you are looking at is real.
That is the whole idea behind the freshness filter: not more listings, but listings whose age you can trust.
Frequently asked questions
How long do job postings usually stay up?
On big consumer boards like Indeed and LinkedIn, about 30 days, which is a listing default rather than a hiring decision. On company careers pages fed by an applicant tracking system, often one to two weeks, and the listing disappears as soon as the requisition closes.
Do job postings get removed once the position is filled?
Sometimes. On an ATS-fed company board the posting usually disappears the same day. On consumer boards the employer has to take it down manually, so filled roles often stay visible until the 30-day window runs out.
Why does the job posting date keep changing?
Because most boards reset the date when a listing is renewed or edited. The visible date is closer to a last-updated stamp than a publication date, so it is a weak signal of how stale a role is.
Is it worth applying to a job posted more than a month ago?
Usually only if you can confirm the requisition is still open on the employer's own careers page, or you have a referral. On a consumer board, a month-old listing is as likely to be an advert nobody took down as an active search.
How can I tell how old a job posting really is?
Check the employer's own careers page first, look for a first-seen or first-published date rather than the printed date, and favour sources that remove listings when a role closes. A posting you can still see on a company board is likely still open.
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