Job Description Best Practices
Optimize your new and existing job descriptions to reach more candidates
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Quick Answer
Recruiters use Indeed to source candidates with Smart Sourcing, screen applicants with Smart Screening, manage applications with ATS sync and Indeed Apply, and scale hiring with Sponsored Jobs or Indeed Hiring Events.
TL;DR:
- Start with Smart Sourcing to find matched candidates, search resumes and send AI-powered outreach faster.
- Use Smart Screening and Indeed Apply with ATS sync to screen applicants earlier and keep candidate data in one workflow.
- Add Sponsored Jobs or Indeed Hiring Events when hiring volume, speed or visibility becomes a bigger priority.
Key Terms:
- Smart Sourcing: Indeed’s sourcing tool helps recruiters find matched candidates, search resumes and send personalized outreach at scale.
- Smart Screening: Indeed’s screening tool evaluates applicants against job criteria and helps teams review stronger-fit candidates faster.
- Indeed Apply: Indeed Apply lets candidates apply directly on Indeed and can sync completed applications back to a supported ATS.
- Sponsored Jobs: Sponsored Jobs increase visibility in search results and use performance-based pricing to help attract more applicants.
- Indeed Hiring Events: Indeed Hiring Events helps employers promote, screen, schedule and manage high-volume virtual or in-person hiring events.
How does Indeed support recruiters throughout the hiring process?
We know you’re sourcing candidates, streamlining internal communications, managing processes and following up with candidates daily. We’ve created a suite of products and tools that integrate with your current process to boost your capacity to hire at scale without sacrificing quality.
Let’s explore how Indeed can simplify your recruitment strategy and address some of the daily challenges you face as a recruiter.
How does Indeed help recruiters hire at scale more efficiently?
When you’re hiring at scale, efficiency is key. We understand that the best recruitment processes enhance your workflow rather than disrupt it. The Indeed Employer Dashboard and products like Indeed Hiring Events and Smart Sourcing with Sourcing Assistant can help you manage and automate everyday tasks.
Indeed’s tools are designed to fit into your current processes and empower you to scale up your recruiting efforts without compromising quality.
How does Indeed help recruiters source and communicate with candidates?
Sourcing quality candidates and transparent communication are important factors in recruiting. With Indeed, features like customizable AI-powered messaging, matched candidates, candidate highlights and automated follow-ups can help you find and filter skilled candidates with the experience you need.
Indeed’s Sourcing Assistant, part of Smart Sourcing, can also help employers identify the “right” candidates and handle early-stage outreach based on your hiring criteria. This can save recruiters time on manual sourcing tasks while allowing them to allocate more time to building connections with prospective candidates or collaborating with their hiring teams.
What are the benefits of using Indeed as a recruiter?
Finding the right candidate for the job is your top priority, and Indeed has developed products to enhance your recruitment efforts. Easy access to a large talent pool and sophisticated recruiting tools are just some of the ways Indeed can support your recruitment efforts.
Let’s discuss the main advantages of using Indeed for recruiters and how these benefits easily connect you with top talent.
How does Indeed help recruiters reach a larger talent pool?
Indeed is the #1 job site in the world. With more than 645 million Job Seeker Profiles on Indeed worldwide, you can tap into candidates from diverse backgrounds across industries and experience levels.
In the US, Indeed receives 5.0X more visitors than ziprecruiter.com, and among BreezyHR clients, Indeed delivers 17.4X more hires than ZipRecruiter.
How do Indeed’s screening tools help recruiters save time?
Part of Smart Screening, Indeed simplifies the initial screening process with screener questions. This tool helps you assess a candidate’s qualifications before the interview. By simplifying this step, recruiters can more quickly identify which applicants to review next.
How does Smart Sourcing help recruiters find quality candidates?
Smart Sourcing on Indeed can help improve your approach to reaching quality candidates. In the US, 67% of recruiters and sourcers say Smart Sourcing saves them the most time in their day-to-day work. Indeed uses algorithms to match your job postings with candidates who are most likely to be a fit for your open position based on the relevance of your job post and job seeker resumes.
We also look at job seekers’ search activity on Indeed and how recently job seekers have been on the site to identify candidates who are showing an interest in new opportunities. This can improve the quality of candidates you receive and boost your response rates, making your efforts more efficient.
Smart Sourcing also helps drive meaningful engagement: Worldwide, employers make an average of 75,000 successful connections with job seekers each day using Smart Sourcing.
Going beyond search, Sourcing Assistant can build on Smart Sourcing by helping employers identify the right candidates even before they apply and automate outreach based on their hiring criteria. This can reduce manual sourcing work and help recruiters build stronger candidate pipelines more efficiently. According to Indeed test data, Applicants sourced by the Sourcing Assistant were hired 31% faster on average than applicants hired from other sources.
Which communication tools help recruiters engage candidates on Indeed?
Effortlessly interact with candidates using Indeed’s communication tools. Generate customized messages, schedule interviews and send automated updates using Indeed Hiring Events. These tools can help you connect with candidates who have the experience and skills you’re looking for.
How do recruiters use Indeed to find and manage candidates?
Indeed offers an effective way to connect with a large talent pool of job seekers. Indeed’s tools are designed to enhance your strategy, job postings and application management. Let’s go over some more tips for how to recruit on Indeed to achieve better hiring results.
How does the Indeed Employer Dashboard support recruiting workflows?
The Indeed Employer Dashboard is your hub for managing recruitment. Go to Your Recent Activity to get a snapshot of your recent job postings. Get information for active candidates, candidates awaiting an interview, and all candidate messages.
The dashboard indicates if you have a Smart Sourcing subscription, how many contacts you have remaining, and your subscription’s expiration date. All the dashboard’s features work cohesively to provide you with the tools you need to manage your recruitment activities and jump back into a workflow without missing a beat.
How does Indeed integrate with an Applicant Tracking System?
Save time and attract more candidates by connecting your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) with Indeed. Indeed integrates with 300+ ATSs globally, so you can spend less time switching between systems.
Here are a few ways Indeed’s ATS integrations make the application process more responsive and efficient:
- Easy Apply: Candidates can apply in a few quick steps for all your jobs, even those syncing. The “Easy Apply” process creates a simplified candidate experience and reduces the candidate drop-off rate.
- Sync job and applicant data: Your job and applicant data sync automatically between Indeed and your ATS. With Indeed Apply you always have access to the most up-to-date candidate information to make informed decisions. On average, jobs with Indeed Apply turned on receive 66% more application starts per job.
- Better candidate matching: Help your jobs get better candidate matches by automatically sharing ATS hiring statuses with Indeed. Sharing hiring statuses with Indeed allows us to show your job postings to job seekers with the right experience for your role.
- Better candidate data: Integrating screener questions and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) compliance into the application process improves data quality by giving recruiters a full view of each applicant’s qualifications, certifications and compliance status.
- Manage your ATS jobs on Indeed: Easily view and manage your ATS job listings directly on Indeed while maintaining consistency across your job posts with efficient tracking and status updates.
- Better collaboration with hiring managers: Recruiters can use ATS integrations to more seamlessly share candidate profiles with hiring managers for review.
How do recruiters use Indeed Hiring Events to hire at scale?
As a recruiter, Indeed Hiring Events can transform how you handle hiring at scale by streamlining several key steps. Using automation tools, Indeed Hiring Events helps you easily find and evaluate candidates for your in-person or virtual hiring event. It also helps you with tasks like candidate screenings, scheduling interviews and managing follow-ups.
Now, you can focus more on engaging with candidates rather than managing logistical details. 90% of users agree that Indeed Hiring Events automation tools save time.
Indeed Hiring Events expands your reach by promoting your events to active talent across job boards like Indeed, Glassdoor and our Trusted Media Network. Indeed Interview, our video interviewing tool, allows recruiters to host virtual events and attract candidates from diverse locations.
This expanded reach gives you access to a variety of talent pools, and in a US survey, 27% of employers said Indeed Hiring Events improved the quality of their hires.
Indeed Hiring Events will only charge you when a candidate clicks Schedule an Interview. This performance-based pricing model makes it easy for you to track your ROI. Oversee RSVPs, completed interviews and more with Indeed’s performance analytics.
How do Sponsored Jobs help recruiters attract more candidates?
Sponsored Jobs help your open roles stand out across Indeed’s network. Unlike free listings, Sponsored Jobs receive prominent placement in relevant search results and don’t fall back over time like free jobs. This added visibility gives your jobs a better chance of being seen by the right candidates at the right time.
Indeed offers two Sponsored Job tiers to support your hiring goals:
- Standard Sponsored Jobs offer improved visibility and performance over free posts and provide automated messages to engage top candidates at key moments of the hiring process.
- Premium Sponsored Jobs offer everything you get with a Standard Sponsored Job while also matching candidates to your job and inviting them to apply. With Premium Sponsored Jobs, you’ll also have the ability to add attention-grabbing visuals, like company logos and images, and indicate that you’re Urgently Hiring to attract top talent.
You only pay for performance. With cost-per-click pricing, you’re charged when job seekers click on your post—not for listing the job. No long-term contracts make recruiting flexible, and you can pause or adjust at any time.
If your jobs are already aggregated from your career site, you can claim them to unlock promotion tools and extend their visibility. Sponsored Jobs can also be posted or upgraded directly through your ATS. Indeed integrates with more than 300 ATS providers, allowing your job and candidate data to sync seamlessly while giving you a full view of applicant activity in one place.
For mobile-first candidates, features like QR codes, Text to Apply, and Scan to Apply make it easy to connect with your job on the go.
How can recruiters streamline communication from sourcing to hiring on Indeed?
Good communication helps maintain a smooth recruitment process from initial contact to hiring. Indeed’s Employer Dashboard offers powerful tools to organize these interactions for clarity and efficiency at every stage. Here’s how Indeed’s tools track and help you manage your communications throughout the recruitment process.
Which communication tools on Indeed help recruiters stay organized?
The Employer Dashboard features an interview scheduling tool that is accessible in the Candidates tab. It allows recruiters and applicants to communicate, schedule interviews and exchange feedback. Some extended features of this tool include:
- Setting up interviews with candidates: Quickly and easily set up interviews with candidates directly through the dashboard. Centralized scheduling helps reduce the time spent on back-and-forth communication.
- Confirming scheduled meetings with candidates: Candidates can choose an interview time based on your availability. Offering flexible interview scheduling makes it easier for candidates to attend, reducing no-shows.
- Viewing and organizing upcoming interviews: With calendar view, you can keep track of your scheduled interviews and have a clear overview of each candidate’s stage in the recruitment process.
- Updating, editing or canceling interview details: Maintain your momentum directly through the dashboard and adapt to any unexpected changes in scheduling.
- Providing and recording post-interview feedback: Streamline your decision-making process with recorded feedback that you can easily pull up for future hiring decisions. This also allows you to easily review interview feedback with hiring managers to evaluate candidates more efficiently.
How do customizable messages help recruiters engage candidates?
Send direct messages right from the Employer Dashboard for consistent and trackable communication. Indeed also offers customizable, automated messages for first contact and follow-up communications. These messages are designed to consistently engage candidates and enhance the recruitment experience. Automating routine communications lets you focus on more personalized interactions.
What are best practices for recruiting on Indeed?
Optimizing your job postings is an important step toward attracting candidates who have the experience you need. Proactively engaging with candidates is one way to attract and retain the most fitting candidates. But if you want to go one step further, here are some best practices for recruiting on Indeed to attract better candidates.
In the US, jobs showing employer-provided salaries get 5.1X more impressions per job than those without salary information.
How can recruiters improve job postings to attract better candidates?
Attracting the right talent in a digital landscape is often a mix of using relevant keywords, concise language and pointing out the role’s key benefits. Here are some of Indeed’s tips on improving job postings to increase your hiring success:
- Optimize for SEO: Use relevant keywords in your job postings and title to help rank your posts in search results. Keep it natural. Trying to stuff keywords in can potentially have a negative impact on your visibility, and your job could get flagged in certain circumstances.
- Use clear job descriptions: Work with hiring managers to highlight the key qualifications you’re looking for using clear and concise language. You can also use Indeed’s AI Job Description Generator to quickly draft a clear, skills-first job description that highlights the most important aspects of the role.
Highlight any perks: Clearly define the benefits and perks associated with the role and describe the unique culture that makes your organization stand out. Candidates are often searching for roles that not only meet their career goals but also fit their lifestyle and improve their work-life balance.
- Include salary information: Be transparent about compensation by providing a salary range, which sets clear expectations about pay. You can also use Hiring Insights to help make your job more competitive.
- Specify the location: Include location details like address, city/state, and ZIP code. Adding a location can increase the relevance of the applications you receive from suitable candidates nearby.
- Add a call to action: End your job posting with a compelling call to action to encourage candidates to apply.
How can recruiters engage quality candidates on Indeed?
Engagement goes beyond your initial job posting and involves strategies to maintain communication and interest throughout the hiring process. Here are some strategies to attract and engage with quality candidates on Indeed:
- Immediately contact or interview candidates through their preferred channels (messaging, phone or video) to make a personal connection.
- Use Smart Sourcing and Sourcing Assistant to quickly generate customizable, AI-powered messages based on the candidate’s resume and your job description to create a personalized message.
- Monitor candidates’ responses and automatically send emails to unresponsive candidates.
- Get actionable insights on candidate engagement to improve performance across your team with Smart Sourcing.
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*Indeed provides this information as a courtesy to users of this site. Please note that we are not your recruiting or legal advisor, we are not responsible for the content of your job descriptions, and none of the information provided herein guarantees performance.
This article is based on product information available at the time of writing, which may change at any time. Indeed does not guarantee that this information is always up-to-date. Please seek out your CS/Sales rep for the latest on this topic.