Finding top talent can be hard: A staggering 99% of 300 U.S. hiring managers say they have trouble retaining top talent, according to a recent Harris Poll survey commissioned by Indeed.1 More than half of those surveyed said they have experienced a reduction in recruiters, while only 36% of passive candidates are responding, wasting time and effort from their already limited teams.
Now, imagine using a sourcing tool that automatically provides you with a list of quality candidates that match the requirements of the job posting you write. That’s Indeed’s new AI-powered Smart Sourcing experience.
The Indeed Resume product allows recruiters to search 295 million resumes on Indeed. Smart Sourcing adds the efficiency of AI to talent sourcing. Instead of manually filtering talent, Smart Sourcing's algorithms match active candidates to open positions. Custom-generated messaging and collaboration tools further streamline your workflow while maintaining a personalized approach to candidate communication.
In fact, 92% of users agree that Smart Sourcing is the best product for finding top talent.2
“AI has been at the core of Indeed's product for many years,” said Donal McMahon, vice president of engineering and data science at Indeed. “The growth of our generative AI allows us to better understand the needs of job seekers and employers, enabling us to make better matches faster than ever before.”
Learn how this tool can address your talent sourcing pain points.
Get high-quality, interested candidates fast
While Indeed Resume search is effective, connecting 69,000 employers with job seekers every day, a Harris Poll study commissioned by Indeed found that 74% of recruiters would prefer to be matched with qualified talent based on skills and relevant experience rather than searching manually. Smart Sourcing's Matching Candidates does just that. Simply toggle an Indeed job in a dropdown menu to instantly view recommended candidates and invite them to apply.
As you accept or reject candidates, Smart Sourcing AI learns your preferences over time, allowing it to curate matched candidate results to your unique tastes, like a Spotify playlist.
You can also manually search and filter resumes or use our auto-suggest feature to speed up the process. Matches are based on the relevance of keywords between the job posting and the job seeker's resume, the job seeker's search activity on Indeed, and the job seeker's most recent visits to the site. This allows Indeed's matching algorithm to present the most relevant candidates who are interested in new opportunities.
Universal Health Services (UHS), a leading hospital and healthcare provider with 400 facilities across the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the UK, reports a 30% increase in candidate response rates since implementing Smart Sourcing.
“Smart Sourcing introduces us to the right candidates who are more proactive and active on Indeed, so we get both better quality candidates and a higher response rate than other similar tools,” said one of UHS’s directors of recruiting.
In a survey of 1,107 U.S. workers, 70% said that companies that recruiters contacted in the past could have done a better job of verifying their skills and experience beforehand. A lack of preparation, personalization and attention to detail in hiring can hurt your company's reputation.
That's why matched candidates will include Candidate Highlights – a generative AI feature that analyzes and summarizes each resume to suggest why the candidate would be a perfect fit for your role or point out potential gaps in their candidate experience. This rapid assessment helps you make more informed hiring decisions, preserving both your employer brand and candidate experience.
Matched candidates who are encouraged to apply are 23 times more likely to apply than job seekers who only saw your job listing when searching on Indeed, and employers who use this feature when sponsoring jobs can hire 20% faster.3,4
Connect with talent with AI-powered messaging
Employers who reach out to candidates through Indeed's resume search receive a positive response from job seekers in just 10 hours, on average.Five However, 95% of hiring managers believe they would be even more productive if AI could assist them with administrative tasks like reaching out to candidates. Indeed's customizable, AI-powered messages reduce the time and effort it takes to manually create, personalize and proofread candidate communications.
This allows you to generate customized messages based on the content of the candidate's resume and the job ad. You can generate variations of the message in the desired tone and refine the information before sending.
“AI-powered messaging is so effective because it's personalized for each candidate. It's amazing how the AI extracts the right parts of the job description to explain the highlights of the job and leverages information from the candidate's resume to explain why it's a great fit,” said the UHS director of recruiting.
With a Professional subscription, you can also automate post-outreach follow-ups with custom reminder messages. Message analytics tracks template performance and provides actionable insights into candidate engagement, helping you maximize your ROI.
Optimize your recruiting workflow and team productivity
Recruiting and hiring can be complicated, with work spread across multiple people and platforms. A Smart Sourcing Professional subscription simplifies the process, allowing you to invite collaborators into your sourcing projects and use collaborative task management tools to accelerate the candidate feedback process.
For example, say you've used Smart Sourcing to create a short list of qualified and responsive candidates. You can easily invite hiring managers to provide feedback, even if they don't have a subscription. Once hiring managers select candidates to move forward to the next hiring stage and leave a note about their decision, you can send bulk invitations with AI-customized messaging about next steps.
The Indeed Connect for Employers app lets you search for talent on the go. After you reach out to candidates, you'll be notified when they respond to your application invitations or messages, so you can respond in real time to keep the hiring process moving forward.
Get started with Smart Sourcing
Smart Sourcing subscriptions are available starting today, and existing Indeed Resume subscriptions have been migrated to Smart Sourcing. Available in both Standard and Professional options, the subscriptions include access to candidate search and filters, matching jobs with quality candidates, and providing faster connections to candidates.
“AI is a powerful efficiency tool, but human decision-making is still required, especially when it comes to people's livelihoods,” McMahon said. “As HR professionals, letting machines take over the chores allows us to invest more in the unique human value we bring to our roles.”
Smart Sourcing helps you find ideal candidates and easily collaborate with your team to make better hiring decisions.
This post was produced by Indeed and Insider Studios.
Research Methodology: The survey was commissioned by Indeed and conducted online by The Harris Poll in the United States from February 12-20, 2024 among 1,107 employed individuals ages 18 and older and 300 hiring managers (those who have the sole or primary decision maker in the recruiting and hiring process) with more than 2,000 employees. Sampling precision for Harris online surveys is measured using Bayesian confidence intervals. For this survey, employee sample data is accurate to within +/- 2.6 percentage points and hiring manager sample data is accurate to within +/- 5.6% at a 95% confidence level.
source
1Survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Indeed in February 2024 among U.S. hiring managers with 2,000+ employees (n=300) and employed adults 18+ (n=1,107).
2Indeed Survey, California (n=151), January-February 2024
3Indeed Data (CA), August 2023
FourIndeed Data (US), Q1 2023
FiveIndeed Data (Worldwide), 2023
