How to use Smart Sourcing to find candidates on Indeed

Using Smart Sourcing and posting jobs on Indeed can bring you a different set of candidates.

Candidates that are matched with your job through Indeed Smart Sourcing have been active on Indeed in the last 30 days and have opted in to being sourced by employers.

If you’d like to search candidates, you can use Indeed Smart Sourcing to instantly match with quality talent from Indeed’s pool of millions of jobseekers.

Using Smart Sourcing can be especially beneficial if you’re looking for highly skilled candidates or if your job posts aren’t attracting the right candidates. Matched candidates you invite to apply are 24 times more likely to apply to your job than jobseekers who only see it in search results.1

What is Indeed Smart Sourcing?

Smart Sourcing is a sourcing solution that helps you find, evaluate and contact candidates more efficiently. Candidate matching capabilities, along with AI features, reduce the time-to-hire so you can work more efficiently.

Smart Sourcing also helps you manage candidates across your recruitment team, which can be especially beneficial for larger employers. We want to make recruitment faster, simpler and more human for both jobseekers and employers.

Benefits of using Smart Sourcing to find candidates

Beyond having access to jobseekers across your industry and location, there are many other benefits of using Smart Sourcing, including:

• Access to active and engaged jobseekers: Smart Sourcing highlights recently active candidates, or you can filter by recent activity in your search results (Professional subscribers only). Additionally, candidates that are matched to your job have been active on Indeed in the last 30 days.
• Instantly match with quality candidates:  Once you post your job, you’ll automatically get a shortlist of candidates who match your job criteria across a variety of industries, skills and education levels based on information collected from the jobseekers, such as skills, experience and preferences. Matched candidates can save you time by presenting you with quality candidates upfront. If you prefer, you can also search for candidates by using unlimited search and refine results with basic filters like availability and job title, or use advanced filters (for Professional subscribers only) like willingness to relocate, job type, or jobseekers recently active on Indeed. Boolean search words like AND and OR can be used to narrow or broaden search results to help with hard-to-fill roles.

• Easily evaluate candidates: When you review a candidate profile, you’ll automatically see AI-powered candidate summaries that highlight candidates’ skills or gaps to make it easier for you to determine whether they’re a fit. This helps streamline your evaluation process and reduce the time-to-hire.

• Quickly connect with responsive candidates: From candidate profiles, you can immediately message candidates. You can also quickly generate AI-powered messages based on your job criteria. These can be customised to suit your needs and personalise your message. 

• Efficient team collaboration: Organise candidates into projects based on your workflow – by location, role, hiring manager, requisition number, etc. Using Projects, you can easily monitor candidates’ responses and automatically send emails to unresponsive candidates. You can also share candidate information and activity with your team members, plus, you can give hiring managers direct access to candidate feedback and status to make recruitment decisions faster (Professional subscribers only). Get actionable insights on candidate engagement to improve performance across your team.

Tips for contacting Smart Sourcing candidates

Deciding which candidates to message based on their CV can be a challenge. Candidate highlights can be helpful with this since you can see a quick summary without reading through each CV in full. However, once you’ve identified a strong candidate, you’ll likely want to take a closer look at their CV.

Look for the skills, experience and education that align with the job description and your ideal candidate profile. You’ll also want to look for any must-have requirements – for example, if the job requires a specific certification, does the applicant have it? If not, you can put their CV in your ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ pile.

Previous job titles, years of experience, achievements or measurable impact in previous roles, and specific tools, programmes or other hard skills listed can all give you clues about whether a candidate could be a match.

When you find a candidate who may be a match for your job opening, send them a message to gauge their interest. Once a candidate replies, you’ll receive an email with their message as well as a link to their Indeed CV with contact details.

Indeed Smart Sourcing FAQs

Can I get matches and view CVs on Indeed for free?

You can search for candidates on Indeed and see a preview of candidates’ CVs for free, but you won’t receive matches. To view full CVs and get candidates that match your job description, and contact them, you’ll need an Indeed account and an active Indeed Smart Sourcing subscription or free trial.

How much does a Smart Sourcing subscription cost?

You can choose from the following Indeed Smart Sourcing subscription options:

• The Standard subscription is £88.45 per month (or £847.63 per year) and grants you 30 new contacts a month.
• The Professional subscription is £294.83 per month (or £2,830.36 per year) and grants you 100 new contacts a month.

The Standard subscription is best if you plan on hiring 1 – 11 people per year, while the Professional subscription is recommended if you plan on hiring 12 or more people per year. Learn more about Indeed Smart Sourcing subscription options, including how to sign up for a free trial.

 

How many candidates can I contact with Smart Sourcing?

A Smart Sourcing subscription gives you a set number of contacts each month depending on the package you select (Standard = 30 per month or Professional = 100 per month). Contacts represent the number of times you can reach out to a new candidate via Smart Sourcing each month.

These contacts are deducted from your subscription each time you contact a candidate. You can also purchase additional CV contacts.

Check the number of contacts remaining on your account in your subscription management dashboard.

Do contacts expire?

Yes. All contacts expire six months after the date the contacts were granted. 

How many times can I contact a particular candidate?

You can contact the same candidate once in a 30-day period. After 30 days, you can contact the candidate again.

Learn more about Smart Sourcing

 

1 Indeed data (UK), 2024