Rethink how you find candidates on Indeed

Sourcing has changed. Many employers now post jobs across multiple platforms, send emails, message on social networks, and work from internal talent pools, while candidates move quickly between opportunities and often apply to several roles at once. In that environment, success is less about doing more and more about sending stronger signals about what you need and how you hire.

Indeed’s AI-powered tools use these signals, along with behavior from millions of job seekers, to help you identify people who are more likely to be right for your roles. When you combine that with clear expectations for the role and thoughtful follow-up with promising profiles, it becomes easier to focus your time on candidates who are more likely to work out.

Use different discovery paths for different hiring needs

“How to find candidates” is not one action. The way you search should change based on what you are hiring for and how urgent the need is. For example:

High-volume, repeat roles

When you hire for the same job again and again, focus on building a repeatable pattern. Use the same titles, similar structures, and a consistent set of must-have criteria, then pay attention to what profiles and behaviors tend to lead to accepted offers.

Specialized or hard-to-fill roles

Here, it often helps to start narrower, with a small set of critical skills or experiences, then widen carefully. Look for people in adjacent titles, related industries, or nearby locations who show the right underlying capabilities, even if their current role does not look identical to yours. Small, targeted adjustments to your search inputs usually work better than starting from a completely new search every time.

Emerging or changing roles

For jobs that are new to your business, you may not know exactly who you are looking for. In those cases, treat your first round of candidates as learning. Notice which profiles feel “almost right,” refine your search inputs and must-have criteria based on what you learn, and allow AI to adjust what it surfaces as your understanding of the role improves.

Tools like Indeed’s AI Job Description Generator can help you turn that clearer picture into a more precise description, which sends stronger signals to AI-powered matching and sourcing tools and improves what they surface over time.

Candidate-driven markets

When you know candidates have many options, speed and clarity matter. Make it easy for people to understand your role and your process, and use AI-powered matching and sourcing tools and outreach tools to contact strong profiles quickly once they appear, instead of waiting for a long list of applicants to build up.

In practice, you might start with a search tied to your most recent job post, then adjust filters, keywords, or location as you see which profiles feel closest to “right.” Small, deliberate changes tend to teach the system faster than starting over each time. You can put these approaches into practice in Indeed Smart Sourcing, which brings these AI-powered matching and sourcing capabilities into a single experience.

Smart Sourcing is a sourcing solution that helps you find, evaluate, and contact candidates more efficiently. Candidate matching capabilities along with AI features can speed up time to hire so you can focus more on reviewing and engaging candidates. It also helps you manage candidates across your hiring team, which can be especially beneficial for larger employers. In fact, matched candidates are 17x more likely to apply to your job than job seekers who only see it in search. 

Let AI widen and focus your search at the same time

When you search for candidates on your own, you make tradeoffs. Very broad searches can surface too many people who are not a fit. Very narrow searches can leave out candidates who would have been worth a closer look.

Indeed’s AI-powered matching and sourcing tools are designed to help you find a better balance. They use information from your job posts and your past hiring activity to:

• Look for candidates whose skills, experience, and location align with your roles
• Pay attention to recency and engagement so you see more people who are actively job seeking
• Learn over time from which candidates you view, contact, and move forward

AI handles the heavy lifting of reading and organizing large volumes of candidate information. You still decide which profiles make sense for your team and which ones you want to contact. This can be especially helpful when you are hiring for recurring roles, working under tight timelines, or trying to reach people who might not apply on their own but would be interested in the right opportunity.

If you want to go deeper into this AI-powered experience, you can explore how Indeed Smart Sourcing brings matching, outreach, and collaboration into one workflow within your employer account.

Look for signs of potential, not just perfect keyword matches

Once you have a focused set of candidates, the goal is to understand who is most likely to succeed in the role, not just who checks every box on paper.

Signals that often matter most include:

• Patterns of impact, for example, how someone has improved a process, reached goals, or taken ownership in previous roles
• Experience in environments that feel similar to yours, such as company size, industry, or type of customers
• Transferable skills, such as tools, languages, or workflows that closely match how your team operates
• Evidence of growth, like increasing responsibility, broader scope, or progression into more complex work

AI can help group and highlight people who look similar to profiles you have hired before. Your review is what turns those suggestions into a short list based on your judgment about skills, growth, and team fit.

Make outreach feel like the start of a real conversation

How you contact candidates is just as important as who you find. Even a strong profile may not respond if the message feels generic or unclear.

You can improve response rates and candidate experience by:

• Referencing something specific from the person’s background that caught your attention
• Offering a short and honest description of the role and why it might be relevant to them
• Explaining what you would like them to do next, such as reply with interest, answer a quick question, or complete a simple application

When candidates respond on Indeed, you receive their message and a link to their profile on resumes.indeed.com so you can quickly review details and decide on next steps in your existing process.

When candidates respond on Indeed, you receive their message and a link to their resume so you can quickly review details and decide on next steps in your existing process.

Treat every outreach as an invitation to a conversation, not a transaction. That mindset tends to lead to better responses and a stronger brand impression, even from people who are not ready to move right now.

Putting it all together

AI can make it faster and easier to find candidates who seem like a strong match. Your expertise, questions, and conversations are what turn those matches into long-term hires who are right for your business.

Ready to screen your next hire? Use Indeed’s screening tools to quickly confirm which applications meet your qualifications and connect with people before the interview.

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