Setting up Seek job alerts and search filters that actually work

How often alerts arrive, and keeping them daily

A Seek job alert is a saved search. Run a search, press "Save this search", and alerts are switched on by default. You can keep up to 10 saved searches, and each alert sends up to 20 of the most relevant new jobs.

You do not choose how often they arrive. Seek's help centre says alerts keep coming daily while you are active on Seek, but if you have not interacted with Seek lately, you receive them just once a month. If your alerts slow down, signing in or opening an alert email is likely to bring them back to daily; if they stop altogether, check your spam folder and whether the search has become too narrow.

A daily alert suits a job hunt. It gives you one list to read at a set time each day, rather than a stream of notifications, and a new ad seen the day it appears leaves you plenty of time before the closing date.

Salary filters when many ads hide pay

Showing the pay is optional on Seek, and in November 2023 Seek said only about one employer in four showed a salary on its New Zealand ads. That makes the salary filter look risky, as though it might drop every ad without a figure. It does not.

Seek makes it mandatory for employers to select a salary range when they post a role, even if they choose not to show it. The range is used for the search filters, so when you filter by salary you also see matching ads that do not display their pay. Seek adds that it cannot guarantee what the employer will pay, so treat the filter as a guide.

Set the minimum at the lowest figure you would seriously consider, not your target, so you do not filter out roles that could be negotiated up. The filter runs annually, monthly or hourly, so hourly roles can be filtered too.

Searching by classification versus keyword

Classifications are Seek's categories, such as Accounting or Administration and Office Support, each with sub-classifications. You can select as many as you like. They catch ads whose titles vary, which keywords can miss.

Keywords catch roles that sit across categories, or that employers classify in different ways. Seek's search accepts AND, OR, NOT and quotation marks, so "project coordinator" OR "project administrator" catches both titles.

A good saved search usually combines the two: one or two classifications with a salary floor and your location, plus a keyword search for the exact titles you want. Be careful not to narrow too far. Seek warns that a very specific sub-classification can return no results, and an alert with nothing in it is easy to forget.

Excluding agencies or contracts

Seek's work type filter can keep contract, temp and casual roles out of an alert. It has no separate option for permanent work, so a full-time fixed-term role can still appear. Check the ads it returns for the first few days, because employers choose the work type themselves and do not always choose it the way you would.

Seek's help centre does not describe a filter for recruitment agencies. The nearest tool is NOT: adding a word such as NOT "labour hire" removes ads that use it. Use exclusions sparingly, because agencies fill many good roles, and an agency ad for the right job is still the right job. Our guide to getting a job in New Zealand covers when agencies help and when a direct application is better.

Saving a job from the alert straight into your board

An alert is only useful if the good jobs in it are acted on. Seek ads stay live for 30 days unless the employer takes them down earlier, and once an ad is gone, so is its wording, which is what you prepare an interview from.

So when an alert brings something worth applying for, save it that day. On a computer, saving the job in one press brings the job and the whole ad across from Seek into your job hunt, with its closing date where the ad gives one, so it is waiting when you sit down to apply. On a phone, add the job and paste the link and the ad into it. Our article on how to read a job ad covers what to look for once it is saved.

Turn a good alert into a tracked application