Motivating candidates to apply

When you post a job on Indeed, you can choose to create a free[1] listing or pay to sponsor your job to improve its visibility in jobseeker searches. You can also customise your Indeed Company Page to help potential candidates learn more about life at your company.

Start building a strong employer brand by claiming your Indeed Company Page. Through featured employee reviews, work wellbeing ratings, priority roles and company updates, your company page can help you compete for the talent you want.

Job seekers that visit your company page are, on average, 3.4 times more likely to apply.[2]

Another way to motivate candidates to apply is to invite them to apply. When you sponsor a job on Indeed, you’ll unlock Matched Candidates, which allows you to view quality candidates whose CV on Indeed fit your description immediately after paying to post. When you see a potential fit, you can invite them to apply. Candidates you invite to apply through Matched Candidates are 29 times more likely to apply to your job than those who only see it in search.[3]

  

Identifying quality candidates on Indeed 

Indeed helps you find people with the skills and qualifications you’re looking for. That way you spend less time searching for suitable candidates and more time connecting with potential recruits.

Screen for key skills and qualifications

Depending on the job, you might want to require a candidate to answer questions about special certifications, work experiences or software proficiencies. Their answers to these screener questions can indicate whether or not they meet your recruitment criteria (e.g. education level, years of experience, language abilities, ability to relocate, geographic location).

Indeed provides a number of pre-written screener questions based on your job title to choose from on the Applicant Qualifications section of your job post, but you can also create your own questions.

Some of our customisable screener question formats include:

• yes/no 
• multiple choice
• short answer
• file upload (like certificates and portfolios) 

Your questions can be marked as ‘deal breakers’ or optional to make sure you only pay for qualified applicants that meet your ‘deal breaker’ requirements. With ‘deal breakers’ you give Indeed permission to deprioritise applicants and file them under Rejected in your employer dashboard. This can also be useful because even if a candidate lacks an optional or ‘nice-to-have’ qualification, they might still be a great fit and could be worth reviewing.

Marking any must-haves as ‘deal breakers’ can also help us surface better matches through Matched Candidates. Learn more about how Matched Candidates works.

Filter to find quality candidates

As people start applying for your job(s), you can use your Employer Dashboard to filter your applicants based on their answers to your questions. You can also filter by other criteria like education, location and work experience to quickly find top candidates.

For more info about filtering and keeping track of candidates, read our article on How to screen and manage candidates with Indeed for Employers.

You can only filter applicants by the questions you marked as deal breakers. Questions marked optional will not appear in your Employer Dashboard.

Screen applicants with Indeed skills tests

Indeed Assessments, or skills tests, are another great tool to help you quickly identify quality candidates. For example, you can test your applicants’ knowledge of technical subjects or general abilities like critical thinking. When you add a skills test, applicants will receive a notification to complete it after applying to your job opportunity. You can then filter candidates in your dashboard based on whether or not they have taken the assessment, and based on their results.

Another benefit is that Indeed Assessments help gauge the interest level of jobseekers. Employers have told us that jobseekers who take the time to complete an assessment test are, in general, more likely to be serious about the job.

You can add an assessment to your job post on the Customised Screening page. Indeed will suggest relevant skills tests based on the job title, and you can always browse the catalogue to find more. You can also choose to let Indeed send the tests to individual applicants on your behalf. Just tick the box next to the Indeed Assessments Terms.

If you already posted a job and would like to add an assessment, click Edit Job in your Employer Dashboard. Then select Assessment Types and edit the assessments you’d like to include. If a candidate has already applied, you can prompt them to take the assessment. Just go to that Candidate’s page, click on More Actions and then select Send Assessment from the list of options.

Unlike applicant qualifications, you can’t require applicants to complete an assessment. It’s important to remember that a person might be a great candidate even if they don’t complete your assessment test, but whoever you choose to move forward with is up to you!

Searching for candidates with Indeed CV

Beyond posting your jobs for candidates to apply to, you can also proactively search our CV database, Indeed CV, to find and message people who meet your hiring criteria. According to an Indeed survey, 73% of employers say candidates sourced from CV databases, like Indeed CV, are ‘extremely qualified’ for the role.[4]

Using Indeed CV can be especially beneficial if you’re hiring for hard-to-fill positions or if you’d like to supplement your job posts by looking for passive talent. In fact, 15% of Indeed users update their CV but don’t actually search for a job[5], which means you can find a fresh set of candidates in our CV database.

Note: You must have an Indeed CV Subscription to view full CVs and contact candidates. Here’s how to purchase a subscription.

Identify promising candidates

With Indeed CV, you can search through 225 million prospective candidates using search criteria and filters like job title, location, skills, work history, education, availability and other criteria. Indeed CV also supports Boolean searching and search operators with the advanced search feature.

Learn more about using Indeed CV to search for quality candidates.

Get in touch with your top candidates

When you find a candidate you’d like to discuss your job opportunity with, send them a message to gauge their interest and/or schedule a phone screen or virtual interview to start the conversation.

You can create and save messages as templates that can be sent to multiple candidates without having to manually replace the job or candidate details. This makes it faster and easier to reach out to the candidates you’re interested in.

You can also easily transfer CVs, contact info and other data to your ATS using Indeed Recruiter Extension.

Read our Indeed CV FAQs for more details on pricing, contacting candidates and more.

Collaborating with your team

Indeed also features a function that allows you to invite colleagues to weigh in on candidates, collaborate on job posts and review billing info. By aligning with your team earlier on in the hiring process, you can save time and move fast when the time comes to make an offer.

Share and discuss job applicants

First you’ll need to invite your colleagues so they can review your applicants. You can do this by visiting the Application Settings page under Communication Settings. Then add your colleagues’ email addresses and set their permissions level. They’ll receive an email which allows them to access your Employer Dashboard, review candidate qualifications and share notes about candidates.

Export candidates

If you’d rather send a candidate’s info to a colleague by email or instant message, you can do that too. From the Employer Dashboard, select the box at the top left, then click on Select Candidates. You can then select one or more candidates to export from any Open, Paused or Closed job.

Some of your coworkers may be more comfortable reviewing a CV in their email inbox. By exporting, you can quickly send a candidate’s CV by email to get candidates approved fast.

Using your Employer Dashboard

Your Employer Dashboard is your one-stop shop for hiring on Indeed. It’s where you can do everything from editing your job posts to contacting candidates. Here’s how to make the most of your Employer Dashboard:

Managing candidates

As you use the filters in your Employer Dashboard to review applicants, you can mark each person with a Yes (√), Maybe (?) or No (X). You can then filter by Applicant Status to quickly sort through and focus solely on the candidates you’re interested in.

Jobseekers tell us that even though it can be hard to hear, they prefer to know when they are no longer being considered for a role. When you come across applicants who aren’t a good fit, click on the Reject Candidate button in the candidate’s profile to automatically send a polite message that lets them know they are no longer being considered for the job.

Indeed helps you stay organised by automatically tagging applicants in your dashboard with one of the following statuses as you move through the recruitment process:

• Awaiting review
• Reviewed
• Contacting
• Rejected

If you do recruit a candidate, you’ll want to manually change their Applicant Status to Hired so Indeed can optimise your experience for your next job. Updating a candidate’s status can also help you stay organised, track your ROI and reference your recruitment history at a later date.

Read more: How to screen and manage candidates with Indeed for Employers

Communicating with candidates

When you’re ready to start the interview process, you can reach out to candidates right from your Employer Dashboard. Keeping all your messages with candidates in one place can help you track where each applicant is in the hiring process and ensure a great potential recruit doesn’t slip through the cracks.

Your messaging inbox consolidates your conversations across all of your jobs on Indeed. By making sure you respond to each message, you can work your way towards the Responsive Employer Badge, which shows up on all your job posts to signify you’re likely to reply to their application.

You can send a message or schedule an interview by clicking a candidate’s profile on the Candidates Page.

Messaging best practices

Contacting candidates with a message is not only an opportunity to move the hiring process along, but also an important part of building trust with a potential teammate. We found that 77% of job seekers say they would have a negative perception of a company if they don’t hear back after applying.[6]

Not sure what to say when contacting a candidate? We’ve created candidate recruitment email templates you can use as a foundation to quickly craft a message to quality candidates.

Indeed Employer Assist

If you want to be courteous to applicants you’re no longer interested in and also save time, use Indeed Employer Assist. This feature will automatically notify candidates that they’re no longer being considered if you don’t take action or show interest in them within 7, 10 or 14 days. The clock starts as soon as a candidate submits an application.

A day before the unreviewed candidate is due to receive a rejection notification, you’ll receive an email notification. That way, if you need more time to take action on an application (e.g. respond to a message, change their status, download a CV), you can manually choose to keep them in the running.

If you go on holiday, become too busy to keep up with reviewing applications or you receive more applications than you expected, you can pause your job to stop receiving new applications.

Interviewing candidates on Indeed

Did you know that Indeed has everything you need to conduct a great interview? From sending calendar invites to connecting on a virtual interview, you can save time and interview prospective recruits without leaving your desk.

Pre-screening candidates

Pre-screening is typically a quick phone call between a prospective candidate and a recruiter or HR generalist. If the candidate seems like a good fit, they’re passed along to the recruitment manager. The pre-screening phone call is most commonly used to verify the candidate’s credentials so the recruitment manager can spend their time interviewing the most promising candidates.

Good pre-screening questions provide a window into a candidate’s work history, skill level and personality. They’re also an opportunity to both evaluate how a candidate might align with your company culture and start off your relationship with a potential recruit on a good foot. In fact, 46% of job seekers say authentic and genuine interviewers are the most important factor in developing a feeling of positive connection or camaraderie with a company during the interview stage.[7]

Here are some phone interview questions to consider asking during your next phone screen. Plus, some tips for conducting an effective phone screen.

After each pre-screen phone call, you can log notes in the candidate’s profile in your Employer Dashboard and edit their applicant status. Any notes you add to the candidate carry over and can help you evaluate the same candidate for other roles that may be a better fit.

Scheduling an interview

Ready to start interviewing? First, click on Set up Interview on the candidate’s profile to get started. Next, send out an interview invitation with some suggested times and the type of interview you want to schedule. Video conferencing is the default, but you can also choose to schedule phone or in-person interviews.

You’ll also want to make sure to send your candidate some information so they can prepare. Our data tells us that 72% of job seekers said that receiving detailed information prior to their interview led to a positive experience.[8]

When you send out your invitation to interview, the candidate will receive your invitation via email. In order to save time and prevent no-shows, interviewees must manually confirm the interview time. Afterwards, both you and the candidate will receive a confirmation with a calendar file so both parties can be sure they’ll receive a notification to attend. A link to your interview will be sent to you and the candidate when they accept your invitation.

Conducting a virtual interview on Indeed

Opting to conduct a live virtual interview on Indeed can be a faster and easier choice over an in-person interview. To schedule a video interview, go to the Interviews tab on your Employer Dashboard and invite the candidate you want to interview.

Try to maintain an air of professionalism by making sure your space is free from loud noises and distracting backgrounds. Making a good impression is important when you consider that 55% of applicants who have a positive interview experience with a company tell their personal network about the experience (e.g., friends, family, colleagues).[9] Here are some best practices to follow when conducting virtual interviews.

Make sure you test your camera and microphone before the interview begins so you know you’ll be seen and heard by the candidate. We also recommend starting off your interview by directly asking the candidate if they can hear and see you properly so both parties can have the best interview possible. In the event you do experience connection issues, you can quickly call the candidate on the phone through Indeed’s virtual interview tool so you don’t miss a beat.

While a video call may seem more casual than an in-person interview, try to conduct the interview as if it were in-person. Come prepared with interview questions and give the candidate ample time to answer. We’ve compiled interview questions across 450+ job titles to help you prepare the most effective interview questions based on the role you’re recruiting for.

Interviews are also your chance to communicate everything important about the job, including why the candidate should work at your company versus anywhere else. Here are some key areas to touch on:

• Job duties, skills and requirements
• Salary range and compensation structure
• A ‘day-in-the-life’ job overview
• Benefit details
• Career path examples

Making a job offer

From candidate to employee 

You’ve gone from many candidates down to your top choice and now the ball is in their court. It’s possible that your top candidate will accept your offer, but they may have other offers on the table. Your best bet is to extend an offer with a competitive salary and attractive perks and benefits. Present your proposed compensation and benefits package with some wiggle room for negotiations. (See these tips for negotiating salary with candidates.)

Here are a few things jobseekers look at when considering an offer:

• Paid time off (PTO), health insurance and other benefits
• Location and commute times
• Opportunities for growth
• Company values and culture
• Job security

Also, make sure to be specific when you mention PTO, sick leave and holidays. It can make a big difference to candidates who are deciding between multiple offers.

When you’re ready to make an offer, email your finalist first to set up a time to talk. If the answer is ‘yes’, it’s time to agree on a start date and send an offer letter. Remember, until a candidate signs the offer, they have not officially accepted.

Not sure how to write an offer letter? Read these job offer letter samples and this offer letter email template.

Once the document has been signed and returned, you’ve successfully recruited a candidate – congratulations!

Contacting Indeed customer success

Need help navigating Indeed? Check out our Help Centre. Log in to your account, and click on Help Centre in the menu at the top of the page.

A pop-up menu will appear at the bottom of the page. You can search commonly asked questions or enter your own in the search bar.

Email

Choose Send message to submit your question into the form. 

Chat

Click Contact us and then Chat with us to begin a chat session.

Call

To speak to a client success specialist, call 0800 652 9825 in the UK and 1800 937 491 in the Republic of Ireland. We’re available Monday –Thursday from 09:00 to 18:00 and Friday from 09:00 to 17:00.

Back to Hiring with Indeed

1. Terms, conditions, quality standards and usage limits apply↩
2. Indeed data (UK, Q3, 2022)↩
3. Indeed data (UK, Q1, 2023)↩
4. Indeed survey, n=450↩
5. Indeed data (worldwide)↩
6. Indeed Survey, n=750↩
7. Indeed Survey, n=750↩
8. Indeed Survey, n=504↩
9. Indeed Survey, n=750↩