Low-Quality Applications, Poor Visibility on Indeed/LinkedIn. What’s Actually Working?

I might sound a bit inexperienced here, but I genuinely need some guidance.

We’re a B2B + B2C pharma company and regularly hire for different roles (sales, operations, regulatory, warehouse, etc.). We currently post jobs on Indeed, but:

• For some positions (especially in Tier 2 cities), the job either doesn’t show properly or we get very poor visibility.
• Even when we receive a lot of applications (a lot for certain positions, almost not good for others, many are completely irrelevant to the JD. It honestly feels like people don’t read the description at all.

We tried LinkedIn as well. The free option only allows one post per month, and when we tried a paid promotion, the campaign stopped within an hour saying the budget was exhausted, but we got almost zero relevant applications.

We don’t have much experience with Naukri.com, but from what I understand it’s mostly paid. Before we invest anywhere else, I wanted to ask:

• What platforms are actually working right now for hiring esp medtech or pharma?
• Are there better options for Tier 2 / smaller cities?
• Do recruitment agencies work well for roles?
• Has anyone tried niche job boards or industry-specific portals?
• Any practical strategies to filter out irrelevant applicants?

Would really appreciate insights from people who actively recruit in pharma or other industries. What’s actually working for you right now?