Quick Answer

Indeed Smart Sourcing helps you find, review and contact candidates fast with AI-powered search, outreach and collaboration tools.

TL;DR 

• Use Indeed Smart Sourcing and Sourcing Assistant to help you search for candidates based on job criteria, skills, location and recent activity.
• Refine your search inputs, job details and filters so Indeed can surface candidates who better match your hiring needs.
• Review matched candidates and send personalized outreach to start conversations with people.
• Use Smart Sourcing to fill multiple roles and keep quality candidates moving through your pipeline.

Key Terms

• Indeed Smart Sourcing: A sourcing tool that helps employers find, review and contact candidates who align with their hiring criteria
• Indeed Sourcing Assistant: Included in Smart Sourcing Professional and Enterprise subscriptions, it’s designed to automate repetitive sourcing tasks and initial outreach to candidates, such as sending introductory messages to people who match your criteria for the role
• Matched candidates: Candidate profiles Indeed surfaces that align with your job criteria based on information collected from job seekers, such as their skills, experience and preferences
• Search inputs: The job details, keywords, filters and other criteria employers use to guide candidate discovery in sourcing workflows
• Transferable skills: Skills or experience from related roles or industries that may still help a candidate succeed in a job
• Candidate outreach: The messages employers send to introduce an opportunity and start a conversation with promising candidates

How can you find candidates who align with your role on Indeed?

Many employers now hire across several channels while candidates move quickly between opportunities. In that environment, the goal is not simply to reach more people. It’s to send clearer signals about what you need and use tools that help you focus on the most relevant candidates first.

Indeed’s AI-powered matching and sourcing tools use signals from your job posts and hiring activity to surface candidates who may be a strong fit for your roles. When you pair that with clear role expectations and timely follow-up, it becomes easier to spend time on the right candidates.

How do hiring needs change the way employers search for candidates?

Finding candidates is not one action. The way you search can change based on what you are hiring for and how urgent the need is. For example:

Finding candidates for high-volume, repeat roles

When you hire for the same roles frequently, it can help to focus on a repeatable pattern. Consider using consistent job titles, similar structures and a stable set of must-have criteria. Then you can track which profiles and hiring signals tend to lead to strong outcomes.

Finding candidates for specialized or hard-to-fill roles

It often helps to start with a narrow set of critical skills or experiences, then widen carefully. You may find relevant candidates in adjacent titles, related industries or nearby locations if they show the underlying capabilities the role requires. Small, targeted adjustments to your search inputs may work better than starting from scratch each time.

Finding candidates for new or changing roles

For roles that are new to your business, your first round of sourcing may be part of the learning process. Notice which profiles seem closest to what you need, refine your search inputs and must-have criteria, and let those signals improve future candidate matching.

Tools like Indeed’s AI Job Description Generator can help you create a more precise job description, which can improve the signals you send to matching and sourcing tools over time.

Finding candidates in a candidate-driven market

When candidates have options, speed and clarity matter. Make it easy for people to understand the role and your hiring process, and reach out promptly when relevant profiles appear.

You can put these approaches into practice in Indeed Smart Sourcing, which brings these AI-powered matching and sourcing capabilities into a single experience. Candidate matching capabilities along with AI features can speed up time to hire so you can focus more on reviewing and engaging candidates. In fact, matched candidates you invite to apply are 15.1x more likely to apply to your job than job seekers who only see it in search.^[1]

How can sourcing tools help widen and focus a candidate search?

When you search for candidates on your own, there is a tradeoff. Broad searches can bring in too many weak matches, while narrow searches can leave out quality candidates with transferable skills.

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

• Surface candidates from Indeed’s pool of active job seekers whose skills, experience and location align with your role
• Prioritize recency and engagement so you can focus on people who may be more ready to hear from employers
• Learn from the candidates you view, contact and move forward over time

AI handles the heavy lifting of reading and organizing large volumes of candidate information. You still retain control throughout the hiring process and can choose which candidates make sense for your team and who you want to contact. This can be especially helpful when you’re 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.

What signs of candidate potential matter beyond keyword matches?

Once you’ve identified a relevant set of candidates, consider how each candidate’s skills and experience align with your role requirements.

Signals that often matter include:

• Patterns of impact, such as improving a process, exceeding performance targets or taking increasing ownership in previous roles
• Experience in environments similar to yours, such as company size, industry or customer type
• Transferable skills, such as tools, systems or workflows, that closely match how your team operates
• Evidence of growth, including broader scope, increasing responsibility or progression into more complex work

What makes candidate outreach feel like a real conversation?

How you contact candidates matters as much as who you find. Clear, personalized outreach can help candidates understand the opportunity and encourage them to respond.

You can improve response rates and candidate experience by:

• Referencing something specific from the person’s background that caught your attention
• Offering a short, accurate description of the role and why it may be relevant to them
• Explaining the next step clearly, such as replying with interest, answering a brief question or completing an application

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

Treat outreach as the start of a conversation. That approach can lead to better responses and a strong employer brand, even with candidates who are not ready to move immediately.

How can Smart Sourcing help build a hiring pipeline?

Smart Sourcing is not only useful when you need to fill one open role quickly. It can also help you build a strong hiring pipeline over time. In fact, 89% of employers agree Smart Sourcing complements inbound job applications by helping them build a strong pool of qualified candidates.^[2]

As you review matched candidates, refine search inputs and send outreach, you create a better understanding of the signals that matter most for your team. That can make future sourcing faster and more focused, especially for recurring roles or roles that are hard to fill.

Pipeline-building also gives your team a way to stay connected to candidates who may not be ready to apply right away. Instead of restarting every search from the beginning, you can use what you learn from prior outreach and candidate review to improve future searches and reconnect with relevant candidates when a new role opens.