Finding quality talent can be difficult. A staggering 99% of 300 US hiring managers say sourcing qualified talent is a challenge, according to a recent Indeed-commissioned survey with Harris Poll.1 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 tool that automatically delivers a list of quality candidates matching the requirements of a job description you 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 295 million 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 can further streamline your workflow while maintaining an individualized approach to candidate communication.
In fact, 92% of users agree that Smart Sourcing is the preferred product for sourcing quality talent.2
“AI has been at the heart of Indeed’s products for years,” said Donal McMahon, vice president of engineering and data science at Indeed. “The growth of generative AI brings with it the potential for a greater understanding of job seeker and employer needs so that we can create better, quicker matches than ever before.”
Here’s how the tool 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 Harris Poll 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 do 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 or use 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 Indeed’s matching algorithms present you with the most relevant candidates who are demonstrating interest in new opportunities.
Universal Health Services (UHS), a leading hospital and healthcare provider with 400 facilities across the US, Puerto Rico, and the UK, has reported its candidate-response rate improving 30% since using Smart Sourcing.
“Smart Sourcing serves up appropriate candidates that tend to be more eager to respond and are active on Indeed. So we get both quality candidates that are a fit and a higher response rate than with another similar tool,” said one director of recruiting at UHS.
In the survey, 70% of 1,107 US workers agree that companies who have contacted them in the past could have done a better job of reviewing their skills and experience beforehand. This lack of preparation, personalization, and attention to detail in recruiting can reflect poorly on your company.
That’s why 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 23 times more likely to apply to your job than job seekers who only see it when searching on Indeed, and employers who use this feature when sponsoring their jobs hire 20% faster.3,4
Connect to talent 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,5 but 95% of hiring managers believe that their productivity would be even better if administrative tasks like candidate outreach could be assisted by AI. Indeed’s 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.
“The AI-powered messages are very effective because they’re personalized for each individual candidate. It’s amazing how the AI pulls in the right pieces of a job description to describe the highlights of the job and uses information from a candidate’s resume to say why it’s a great fit,” the UHS recruiting director said.
With a professional subscription, you can also 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.
Optimize recruiting workflows and team productivity
Recruiting and hiring can be complex, with work distributed across multiple people and platforms. Smart Sourcing Professional Subscriptions simplify the process, allowing 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 short list 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 following hiring stages and left notes about their decisions, you can then bulk-send invitations about the next steps with AI-customized messages.
You can also take your sourcing with you on the go with the Indeed Connect for Employers app. Once you’ve reached out to potential candidates, notifications alert you when they respond to an application invite or a message, allowing you to reply in real-time and keep the hiring process moving forward.
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, matching quality candidates to your job, and offering faster candidate connections.
“AI is a powerful efficiency tool, but it still needs human decision-making — especially when it comes to someone’s livelihood,” McMahon said. “As an HR professional, let the machine do the busywork so you can invest more into the unique, human value you bring to your role.”
This post was created by Indeed with Insider Studios.
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+ 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.
Sources
1Harris Poll survey of US hiring managers with 2,000+ employees (n=300) and employed adults, ages 18 and older (n=1107), conducted on behalf of Indeed, February 2024
2Indeed Survey, CA (n=151), Jan-Feb 2024
3Indeed data (CA), August 2023
4Indeed data (US), Q1 2023
5Indeed data (worldwide), 2023
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