Indeed Cuts 2,200 Employees | Hacker News Reader

Indeed Cuts 2,200 Employees

forbes.com

20 pointsfairytalemtg9 comments

We’ve been receiving complaints from people who thought they were applying for roles with us on Indeed. They get interviewed over Google Meet by people using the names of some of our department heads, get a sweet offer, then are told to buy their IT equipment from our supplier and will be reimbursed in their first paycheck. We reported these postings to Indeed, who told us that there was nothing they could do about fraudulent job postings and that we’d need to take it up with the company posting them. I never thought highly of Indeed before that, but now I rank them just below Craigslist Jobs. It’s shocking they have almost 10x the number of employees as monster.com without any perceivable difference in features.

I feel bad for the employees, I feel nothing for the executives. On the hiring side of Indeed they send you loads of garbage candidates, which you are charged for, without the full set of filters and tools you’d need to prevent that.

Since Indeed charges for these applicants, there is a conflict of interest with their customers which they embrace. It’s not an honest business model and in a world where the employees would be okay I’d be happy to see them go.

Corporate America is infested with these unethical businesses, it’s so tiring.

This is very incorrect. I work at Indeed. The company from the leadership on down has talked & moved for years towards better aligning what we deliver & what we charge money for with what our customers want (hires).

You seem to have a jaded point of view, which is understandable. Indeed has historically operated on a pay per click model, similar to much of online advertising. In that model, much of the traffic is by definition not valuable.

Nevertheless, your statements about the conflict of interest are incorrect, and the business is very much not unethical.

I am very willing to be shown to be wrong, however let's simplify this. Indeed charges per candidate, and therefore is incentivized to provide the maximum number of candidates. Hiring companies want the smallest number of candidates, that are most likely to be right for the job. In other words, if you had an AI with infinite capability and resources, it would only recommend 1 candidate which would be the perfect person for the job.

How is Indeed's interest in the most candidates and a hiring company's interest in the fewest but most qualified not a conflict?

FYI this isn't speculation. I hired for hundreds of positions for years using Indeed's platform. Maybe the pricing model has changed in the 2 years since I used it. If that's true I'd be happy to hear it.

If you sign up today and host a job on Indeed, you will only be charged for applicants you approve. You have a day or two to reject candidates. We charge more money per candidate that you approve, instead of charging you per apply or click.

Internally, Indeed watches a ton of metrics, but our primary metric is how many people we ultimately helped get a job. We rarely release a feature unless we can prove it, with hard data, that it does. Secondary metrics monitor things like jobseeker and employer efficiency (how easy is it to find a mutual match.) In the last two years, the pricing model, the recommendation engine, everything is completely different.

I work on matching at Indeed. Not sure when the last time you used Indeed was, but over the past year or so we've made huge strides in our match quality. And we've recently began experimenting with alternative revenue models in order to better align with candidate and employer interests. We honestly do want to provide high quality matches and help people get jobs. Spamming employers with irrelevant candidates is not a very sustainable business model and helps nobody.

That's great to hear, especially around the pricing model. If Indeed only benefits when employers do, everything else automatically falls into place. I've been away from the platform for about 2 years, but administered it for about 8 prior to that.

pretty trippy - the job site cutting jobs.

and, who knew a job site could employ so many people?

i'd guess mostly sales/marketing.

ziprecruiter, of 15,000-click "one-click" fame, have exactly 1,000 employees. allegedly. sounds like 1,000 too many to me.

Indeed, they do

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