Special Ad Category
Definition
Meta's label for job, housing and financial ads. For job ads it limits targeting on age, gender and location, and lookalike audiences aren't available.
Aron VeraartUpdated When you advertise a job on Facebook or Instagram, Meta wants you to mark the campaign with the employment Special Ad Category. It's there to prevent discrimination, so people don't get excluded from seeing a job because of who they are. Per Meta's developer documentation, it's required for ads in the US, Canada and Europe, and in other places advertisers can opt in.
What it changes, according to that same documentation: you can't pick a gender, age is basically fixed to everyone from 18 to 65+, you can't target ZIP codes and any location you choose has to cover at least a 15-mile (25 km) radius in the US and Canada or 15 km in Europe. You also can't exclude locations, behavior and demographic targeting are off, interests come from an approved list, and lookalike audiences aren't available. Custom audiences, like people who visited your vacancy, are still possible.
Honestly, I don't see this as a problem. It pushes you toward broad targeting, and then your creative has to do the targeting. A clear title, the salary and a visual that speaks to nurses or welders will find nurses or welders.
Example
A recruiter used to target "women, 25 to 40, within 5 km" for a childcare job. Under the Special Ad Category that's not possible, so they target the whole region at a 15 km radius, all ages, and let the ad do the work: a real childcare worker in the photo, the salary in the first line, and the shifts spelled out.