Recruit Smarter, Not Harder, with the AI Efficiency of Indeed Smart Sourcing

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in April 2024 and has since been updated with product enhancement information and new insights.

Key Takeaways 

• Indeed-commissioned survey data shows recruitment 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 Smart Sourcing tool combines the power of matched candidates with AI features to make talent sourcing more efficient.

Three in four (74%) UK businesses feel recruitment has become harder in the past five years, according to new data from a recent Indeed survey. The survey of 1,000 workers and 1,000 recruitment professionals in the UK shows that the recruitment process is inefficient and frustrating, with 63% of recruitment professionals wanting to be more productive but 61% feeling like they’re wasting time.¹

With over 908,000 job vacancies in the UK, according to ONS data and 53% of businesses saying they have ambitious recruitment targets this year, the pressure is on. But discovering quality candidates who are open to a new role is no mean feat; in fact, 66% of recruitment professionals discount some recruitment sites for fear they won’t be able to find a pool of candidates who could be a good fit. It’s no surprise that 65% say that the lack of quality candidates is one of the biggest frustrations in their job.

Now, imagine using a sourcing tool that automatically delivers a list of quality candidates who match the requirements of a job description you've already written. That’s the experience with Indeed’s AI-powered Smart Sourcing.

By leveraging over 345 million sourceable jobseeker profiles that Indeed has from around the globe,² 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 individualised approach to candidate communication. In fact, 77% of users agree that Smart Sourcing is the preferred product for sourcing quality talent.²

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

‘Employers who use matched candidates hire 30% faster’

Get Quality Matched Candidates, Fast

The Indeed-commissioned Harris Poll survey found that 74% of recruitment managers would prefer to match with qualified talent based on skills and relevant experiences instead of manually searching for them. Smart Sourcing does exactly that – its unified search integrates AI-matched candidates directly into your search results, dramatically speeding up your review process and helping ensure you never overlook a great recruit.

Matches are based on the keyword relevancy of your job post and jobseeker CVs, as well as jobseekers’ search activity on Indeed and how recently they’ve been on the site. This helps Indeed’s matching algorithms present you with the most relevant candidates who are demonstrating interest in new opportunities. On the Smart Sourcing homepage, users can quickly locate candidates through previously saved searches, recently posted jobs or keywords. 

Healthcare Homes, an award-winning provider of residential, nursing, home-care and live-in services across the UK, reported success within the first two months of using Smart Sourcing:

‘During our trial of Indeed Smart Sourcing, the recruitment team have found the ease of use to be excellent. Over the course of the two months, we offered 50% of the candidates contacted a position with our company and feel the new developments being made to the product will only enhance the results further. 'We look forward to using this in the future’.

In the survey, 62% of jobseekers report being contacted for roles that aren’t right for them, while 66% say companies can do a better job of reviewing their skills and experience before reaching out. This lack of preparation, personalisation and attention to detail in recruitment can reflect poorly on your company.

Matched candidates you invite to apply are 24.8 times more likely to apply to your job than jobseekers who see it only when searching on Indeed,³ and, on average, employers who used Smart Sourcing hired a candidate 30% faster when they invited matched candidates to apply.⁴

‘Matched candidates you invite to apply are 24.8 times more likely to apply to your job than jobseekers who see it in search.’

Connect to talent straight away with AI-powered messaging

According to the survey, 95% of recruitment managers believe that their productivity would be even better if AI could help with administrative tasks like candidate outreach. Enter Indeed’s customisable AI-powered messages, which reduce the time and effort required to manually write, personalise and proofread candidate communications.

This allows you to generate a customised message based on the content of the candidate’s CV and your job posting. You can generate message variations by desired tone and refine the information before sending it.

‘The AI-powered messages are very effective because they’re personalised 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 CV to say why it's a great fit’, says the UHS recruitment director.

With a Professional subscription, you also gain the ability to automate post-outreach follow-up with custom reminder messages.

Optimize Recruiting Workflows and Team Productivity

Recruitment and hiring can be complex, with work distributed across multiple people and platforms. To simplify the process, Smart Sourcing Professional Subscriptions allow you to invite your team to sourcing projects and accelerate the candidate-feedback process with collaborative task management.

For example, say you’ve used Smart Sourcing to curate a list of suitable, responsive candidates. You can easily share contacted candidates with members of your team who also have a Professional subscription, add notes to stay up to date on the candidate throughout the hiring funnel, and invite the recruitment manager to provide feedback.

Smart Sourcing in Action

Through Indeed’s Customer No. 1 programme – which aims to help Indeed employees better understand the client experience by directly using Indeed's products and providing their feedback – the Indeed talent attraction team put Smart Sourcing to the test. They use the product to hire internally across the US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Ireland, India, Australia and France. 

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 customised by our experienced recruiters,’ says Christina Rippo, Indeed Senior Programme 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

Smart Sourcing subscriptions are available in Standard and Professional based on your organisation’s needs. All subscriptions include access to candidate search and filters, matched candidates, AI functionality and collaboration tools, though features may vary by country.

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

Learn more about Smart Sourcing and try it for free.

Survey methodology: The survey was conducted among 1000 recruitment professionals and 1000 working people in the UK. The interviews were conducted online by Sapio Research in March 2024 using an email invitation and an online survey. Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results. In this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary by more than 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus, from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.

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Sources

1 Sapio Research survey of UK recruitment managers with 2,000 recruitment professionals (n=1000) and working people, ages 18 and older (n=1000), conducted on behalf of Indeed, March 2024

2 Indeed data (UK), August 2023

^3.4Indeed data, United Kingdom

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