Recruit Smarter, Not Harder, with the AI Efficiency of Indeed Smart Sourcing

Indeed’s new Smart Sourcing product uses advanced matching technology and AI to help expedite the talent sourcing process without losing the personal touch candidates want.

Key Takeaways 

• Indeed-commissioned survey data shows hiring managers struggle with manually sourcing unresponsive candidates, while candidates wish companies would more thoroughly review their qualifications before contacting them about new opportunities.
• Indeed’s new Smart Sourcing product combines the power of Resume Search and matched candidates with AI features to make talent sourcing more efficient.
• Have an Indeed Resume subscription? Contact your account manager to transition it into a Smart Sourcing subscription, available now in Standard and Professional options.

Finding qualified candidates is a challenge for 76% of Indian employers, according to a recent Indeed-commissioned survey with Valvuvox.¹ And it’s no wonder why — over half of those surveyed have seen reductions in their recruiting personnel, while they say only 36% of passive candidates are responsive, wasting the time and effort of an already limited team. 

Now, imagine using a sourcing product that automatically delivers a list of quality candidates that match the requirements of a job description you already wrote. That’s the experience with Indeed’s new AI-powered Smart Sourcing.

Building on the Indeed Resume product, which allows recruiters to search the 2.95 crore resumes on Indeed, Smart Sourcing adds the efficiency of AI to your talent sourcing. Rather than manually filtering through talent, Smart Sourcing’s algorithms match active candidates to your open roles. Custom-generated messaging and collaboration tools further streamline your workflow while maintaining an individualized approach to candidate communication. In fact, 91% of users agree that Smart Sourcing is the preferred product for sourcing quality talent.

Indeed has been invested in using AI to optimise hiring and recruiting for a long time. “What we hear from jobseekers and employers is that they welcome any help to make the process better, as long as they stay in the driver’s seat and with a human making the final hiring decision,” says Raj Mukherjee, Indeed Executive Vice President of Marketplace Product and UX.

Here’s how the product can address your talent sourcing pain points.

Get Quality and Engaged Matched Candidates, Fast

While Indeed Resume’s search is effective, providing 69,000 successful connections between employers and job seekers each day, the Indeed-commissioned survey found that 74% of hiring managers would prefer to match with qualified talent based on skills and relevant experiences instead of manually searching for them. Smart Sourcing’s matched candidates does exactly that — simply toggle between your jobs on Indeed via a drop-down menu to instantly view recommended candidates, then invite them to apply.

As you accept or reject candidates, the Smart Sourcing AI will learn what you prefer over time. This lets you curate your matched candidates results like a Spotify playlist, tailored to your unique preferences.

You can still manually search and filter resumes as you like, or use the automated recommendations to expedite the process. Matches are based on the keyword relevancy of your job post and job seeker resumes, job seekers’ search activity on Indeed and how recently job seekers have been on the site. This helps our matching algorithms present you with the most relevant candidates who are demonstrating interest in new opportunities.

“Indeed has helped us discover good talent at Kanan. With Indeed's Resume product, we have successfully hired candidates at a 40% success rate,” Isha Patel, Head of Talent Acquisition at Kanan International Pvt. Ltd.

Matched candidates include candidate highlights, a generative AI capability that analyzes and summarizes each resume to suggest why the candidate could be a great fit for your role, or to point out potential gaps in their experience. This accelerated evaluation enables you to make better-informed hiring decisions to preserve both your employer brand and the candidate experience.

Matched candidates you invite to apply are 17x more likely to apply to your job than job seekers who only see it when searching on Indeed.

Connect To Talent Right Away with AI-Powered Messaging

Employers contacting candidates through Indeed’s resume search receive a positive response from a job seeker in just 10 hours on average,² but 95% of hiring managers believe that their productivity would be even better if administrative tasks like candidate outreach could be assisted by AI. Our customizable AI-powered messages reduce the time and effort it takes to manually write, personalize and proofread candidate communications.

This allows you to generate a customized message based on the content of the candidate’s resume and your job posting. You can generate message variations by the desired tone and refine the information before sending it.

With a Professional subscription, you also gain the ability to automate post-outreach follow-up with custom reminder messages. Message analytics track how your templates perform and provide actionable insights on candidate engagement, helping you maximize ROI.

Optimise Recruiting Workflows and Team Productivity

Recruiting and hiring can be a complex task with work distributed across multiple people and platforms. To simplify the process, Smart Sourcing Professional Subscriptions allow you to invite collaborators to sourcing projects and accelerate the candidate feedback process with collaborative task management tools. 

For example, say you’ve used Smart Sourcing to curate a shortlist of suitable, responsive candidates. You can easily invite the hiring manager to provide feedback, even if they don’t have a subscription. Once they’ve chosen which candidates will move on to the next hiring stages and left notes about their decisions, you can then bulk-send invitations about next steps with AI-customised messages.

Smart Sourcing in Action

Through Indeed’s Customer No. 1 program — which aims to have Indeed employees better understand the client experience by directly using Indeed's products and providing their feedback — the Indeed talent attraction team put Smart Sourcing to the test. They use the product to hire internally across the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Ireland, India, Australia and France. Here’s what they reported.

First, the team worked with the Indeed legal department to ensure the responsible use of AI in compliance with Indeed’s hiring rules and regulations. For example, recruiters add a stipulation at the end of every AI-generated message stating that it is generated by AI but reviewed by a human before sending.

To connect with candidates, the team has found success using the combination of AI efficiency and the human touch. “We find the best response rates with messages generated by AI and then further customised by our experienced recruiters,” says Christina Rippo, Indeed Senior Program Manager of Talent Attraction.

Rippo recalled how one of Indeed’s recruiters found two qualified candidates for an open role in just two minutes. “When you are sourcing passive candidates, you never know what could happen,” Rippo says. “Our recruiters have told me that, with the quality and responsiveness of the matched candidates, we are engaging candidates faster.”

Getting Started with Smart Sourcing

Smart Sourcing subscriptions are available starting today, and existing Indeed Resume subscriptions have transitioned to Smart Sourcing. Available in both Standard and Professional options, subscriptions include access to candidate search and filters, matched candidates, new AI functionality and collaboration tools.

Ultimately, no one gets into talent attraction for the legwork — it is for the people. “AI can and will make hiring way simpler and faster,” says Maggie Hulce, Indeed Chief Revenue Officer. “But together, we can ensure the ‘human’ is always at the heart of hiring.”

Learn more about Smart Sourcing and reach out to your Indeed account manager to discuss how you can discover and manage your ideal candidates and easily collaborate with your team to make better hiring decisions.

Survey methodology: This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Indeed from February 12-20, 2024, among 1,107 employed adults, ages 18 and older, and 300 hiring managers (those with sole or primary decision making in the recruiting and hiring process) with 2,000+ number of employees. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the employee sample data is accurate to within +/- 2.6 percentage points and the hiring manager sample data is accurate to within +/-5.6%  using a 95% confidence level.

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Sources

¹ Indeed and Valuvox research, 500 employers and 1100 job seekers, March 2024

²Indeed data (worldwide), 2023

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