Through a fortunate turn of events, Gus, Senior SEO Product Manager, redefined his career vision by blending his SEO expertise with Product Development. His role involves crafting impactful features that assist job seekers worldwide in their search for better work utilizing Indeed’s Career Guide - while championing small businesses through initiatives such as Customer No.1 for All Indeedians. Discover Gus’s career evolution and why he values the supportive and flexible culture fostered inside Indeed.
For several years, I lived across the river in Dublin, where Indeed is located, and I’d see the building every day on my way to work. I’ve spent my entire career in SEO, but I was unhappy at my previous job when, through mutual contacts, my manager approached me. In 2022, I joined Indeed as an SEO Content Manager. Shortly after, one of my colleagues decided to move to another company, and I was offered his role as an SEO Product Manager; I’ve been recently promoted to Senior SEO Product Manager.
I honestly thought this role would involve working with developers to fix broken problems and make minor SEO improvements. Little did I know this had been my stroke of luck. It’s the job I didn’t know I wanted for many years and gave me a refresh on my skills and career vision.
Today, I see myself with one foot in SEO and another in Product Development. I fell in love with Product Management, which involves developing ideas and hypotheses, building, releasing, measuring, and improving features, and collaborating across multiple highly-motivated teams like Software Engineers, UX, Marketing Science, Product, Content, and SEO on high-impact initiatives. Two years ago, I would barely know this was a “thing.” Now, I bring everything I learned from Product to SEO.
I spend most of my days building features - connecting different Indeed products, looking for ways to facilitate job seekers in their search to find better work, and helping them develop their skills in their current roles through our Career Guide, an Indeed product available in 26 countries. We create content related to every step of the job journey, such as interviews, skills, certifications, salary, and many other topics, for thousands of different occupations. Beyond offering these articles, often written by Indeed’s career coaches, we also use this opportunity to help job seekers apply for more jobs and update their job search preferences and resumes. After reading Career Guide articles, job seekers typically take the next step in their career journey and apply for open roles on Indeed.
What’s most rewarding about my role is first finding positive results and second releasing features. While goals change occasionally, it's always a variation of our company mission: We help people get jobs. I feel immensely proud whenever I can show that we make something that helps job seekers.
In addition to helping job seekers, I participated in the Customer No.1 for All Indeedians program. This program allows Indeed employees to support small businesses and nonprofits by issuing them sponsored job credits - helping them fulfill their hiring needs with Indeed’s services.
Through this program, I helped a small video production company in the UK hire a new employee. It was fascinating to see Indeed products from the employer perspective and how quickly this company found several candidates - and a hire from Indeed. They were surprised about our capabilities - how job seekers approached them, the interview process management, and ultimately, how easy it is to make a hire through Indeed. The company owner mentioned how he had invested in different platforms in the past and was surprised that Indeed performed so much better at a lower cost, going beyond just matching candidates.
Working at Indeed has benefited me in many ways, personally and professionally. Professionally, I’ve increased my profile as a marketer. I’ve had the opportunity to speak at several high-profile SEO events, which I tried before without success. Now, I get asked to participate more than I can, which is flattering.
I’ve also grown my career by elevating my skills to higher standards to reach more substantial professional outcomes. I’ve become better at developing hypotheses, measuring results, and communicating across different teams. People now consult with me to find answers, bounce ideas, and trust what I propose.
The considerable flexibility and work-life balance are worth mentioning on a personal level. I have a two-year-old daughter, and sometimes there’s a bad night of sleep, a doctor’s appointment, or she must stay home all day. My manager is very flexible and understanding about these challenges, even though he’s not a father. Of course, in return, I’m also flexible - most of my team is in different time zones, so there are some late meetings after my daughter is asleep. Flexibility and trust among colleagues across Indeed go both ways.
I never dreamed of working for a large corporation, but I hope to stay for many years. No company is perfect, but I like to say that there’s a “honeymoon phase” in every new job for a few months, and then you start seeing the difficulties. While also true here, I never fell out of excitement to be an Indeedian - some of that “honeymoon phase” is still here.