Indeed’s new Smart Sourcing product uses advanced matching technology and AI to help expedite the talent-sourcing process without losing the personal touch candidates want.

Key Takeaways

  • Indeed-commissioned survey data shows hiring managers struggle with manually sourcing unresponsive candidates, while candidates wish companies would more thoroughly review their qualifications before contacting them about new opportunities.
  • Indeed’s new Smart Sourcing tool combines the power of Resume Search and matched candidates with AI features to make talent sourcing more efficient.
  • Have an Indeed Resume subscription? Contact your account manager to transition it into a Smart Sourcing subscription, available now in Standard and Professional options.

A staggering 99% of 300 U.S. hiring managers say sourcing qualified talent is a challenge, according to a recent Indeed-commissioned survey with Harris Poll.1 And it’s no wonder why — 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 who match the requirements of a job description you already 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, 90% of users agree that Smart Sourcing is the preferred product for sourcing quality talent.2

Indeed has been invested in using AI to optimize hiring and recruiting for a long time. “What we hear from job seekers and employers is that they welcome any help to make the process better, as long as they stay in the driver’s seat and with a human making the final hiring decision,” says Raj Mukherjee, Indeed Executive Vice President of Marketplace Product and UX.

Here’s how the tool can address your talent-sourcing pain points.

Graphic with text saying employers who use matched candidates hire 20% faster.

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 does 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 the 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 U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.K., 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,” says one director of recruiting at UHS.

In the survey, 70% of 1,107 U.S. 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 17x 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

Graphic with text saying matched candidates you invite to apply are 17 times more likely to apply to your job than job seekers who see it in search.

Connect to Talent Right Away 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 desired tone and refine the information before sending it.

It's amazing how the AI pulls in the right information from a job description and a candidate's resume to say why it's a great fit.

Universal Health Services on using Smart Sourcing's AI-powered messages

“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,” says the UHS recruiting director.

With a Professional subscription, you also gain the ability to 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 a complex task with work distributed across multiple people and platforms. To simplify the process, Smart Sourcing Professional Subscriptions allow 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 share contacted candidates with members of your team, add notes to stay up to date on the candidate throughout the hiring funnel and invite the hiring manager to provide feedback.

Need to continue the hiring process on your company’s applicant tracking system (ATS)? Indeed offers integrations with Workday, iCIMS and Greenhouse that automatically transfer candidate information for you. 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.

Smart Sourcing in Action

Through Indeed’s Customer No. 1 program — which aims to have Indeed employees better understand the client experience by directly using Indeed's products and providing their feedback — the Indeed talent attraction (TA) team put Smart Sourcing to the test. They use the product to hire internally across the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Ireland, India, Australia and France. Here’s what they reported.

First, the team worked with the Indeed legal department to ensure the responsible use of AI in compliance with Indeed’s hiring rules and regulations. For example, recruiters add a stipulation at the end of every AI-generated message stating that it’s generated by AI but reviewed by a human before sending.

A bar chart displaying that of candidates engaged globally, Indeed's TA team got a 77% response rate and 62% positive response rate.
Using Smart Sourcing, Indeed's TA team achieved a 77% response rate from candidates globally, with 62% responding positively.

To connect with candidates, the team has found success using the combination of AI efficiency and the human touch. “We find the best response rates with messages generated by AI and then further customized by our experienced recruiters,” says Christina Rippo, Indeed Senior Program Manager of Talent Attraction.

Rippo recalled how one of Indeed’s recruiters found two qualified candidates for an open role in just two minutes. “When you're sourcing passive candidates, you never know what could happen,” Rippo says. “Our recruiters have told me that, with the quality and responsiveness of the matched candidates, we’re engaging candidates faster.”

Getting Started with Smart Sourcing

Available in both Standard and Professional options, Smart Sourcing subscriptions include access to candidate search and filters, matching quality candidates to your job and offering faster candidate connections.

Ultimately, no one gets into talent attraction for the legwork — it's for the people. “AI can and will make hiring way simpler and faster,” says Maggie Hulce, Indeed Chief Revenue Officer. “But together, we can ensure the ‘human’ is always at the heart of hiring.”

Learn more about Smart Sourcing and reach out to your Indeed account manager to discuss how you can discover and manage your ideal candidates and easily collaborate with your team to make better hiring decisions.

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 U.S. 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 U.S. Survey, 2024 (n=300)

3Indeed data (U.S.), August 2023

4Indeed data (U.S.), 2023

5Indeed data (worldwide), 2023