Indeed.com is one of the most popular free career search engines, many wonder how Indeed makes money. Indeed serves over 250 million unique visitors every month. Job seekers can search and apply for jobs, upload their resumes, and create a job alert, all for free. So, how is Indeed one of the most successful and profitable companies in the US market?
Indeed’s business model revolves around the employers. The company makes money by charging for additional features and sponsored job posts. These grant employers increased visibility and better access to top-tier talent. Indeed also earns through its subscription fees, hiring events, pay-per-click job advertising, and banner ads.
Indeed is a free job posting and searching website with an intelligently curated business plan. Their model focuses on job aggregation and search relevance enhancement. Here we’ll learn more about the company, its business model, and how Indeed makes money and remains profitable.
What is Indeed?
Indeed is a worldwide employment website for job listings launched in 2004. The company was founded and is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and Stamford, Connecticut. This job listing website became popular due to its catchy name, global reach, and outstanding marketing. It is available in over 60 countries and more than 28 languages.
Indeed aggregates job listings from thousands of websites on the internet and presents them in an easy systematic manner, making it easier for applicants to search and apply. Indeed prioritizes their job seekers with free access to check a recruiter’s profile, look for relevant jobs, and upload resumes.
How Indeed Makes Money?
Indeed is the world’s best job listing website, strengthening its monetization potential. More than 250 million unique users visit their website every month to search for jobs and opportunities around them. The platform leverages this advantage to earn an increased revenue compared to other job search sites.
Indeed’s business model is viable for both employers and job seekers. The following delves into how Indeed makes money and stays ahead of its competitors.
- Targeted Job Advertising
Indeed’s primary revenue source is their targeted job advertising for employers, which has turned out to be a great long-term strategy. This tool helps employers target job seekers who may not know you are in the market for their skills directly. Employers narrow down and target their candidate pool through search history, location, and qualification.
These targeted posts work on a pay-per-click model. Indeed’s intelligent algorithm lists all the targeted job posts by relevance. And initiates ad bids when an applicant searches for a related job title. The employer pays the platform whenever a job seeker clicks on their promoted listing. This feature also provides employers with value for money.
- Sponsored Listing
Sponsored listings are jobs that employers promote at a fixed rate. Employers can set up advertisements for their job listings and company pages. It helps them attract top-tier talent and also reduces their hiring time.
Indeed allows companies and individual employers to promote their job listings. They do so by choosing a daily budget and the number of days they’d like their ad to be live. The platform displays the average number of applicants they can reach in the set time limit based on their budget.
Whenever companies sponsor their listings, they have to set up a budget and pay the platform upfront.
- Indeed Hiring Events
Indeed offers recruiting events for large organizations, allowing them to hire many employees on a single day. These events help employers to interview multiple candidates virtually at the same time.
Indeed allows employers to post these hosted events to their platform. They also permit them to offer an initial screening process and interview candidates before the event date. The shortlisted applicants from the interview process are then invited to the event.
Recruiters have to pay a one-time fee to Indeed to host these events. The prices depend upon the location, the number of job seekers targeted, and the employer’s target demand for the job.
- Indeed Resume Search Subscription
Indeed’s resume search subscription allows employers to access the platform’s broad database of active job applicants. It makes it easier for companies to search through thousands of uploaded resumes using over 25 search filters.
To access the database of job seekers Indeed charges recruiters a monthly subscription fee. It offers a Standard plan that starts from $100 per month per recruiter. And there’s a Professional plan that costs $250 per month per recruiter. Depending on the employer’s plan, Indeed offers them access to up to 150 million uploaded resumes.
Recruiters can also access Indeed Hiring insights and unlock the platform’s additional features like bulk messaging with the Premium subscription plan.
- Seen by Indeed
Seen by Indeed is the platform’s premium matching space, where recruiters can find and hire in-demand talent in the field of technology. Indeed allows job seekers to highlight their resumes, skills, job location, interests, and preferred work culture. And this enables the platform to match job seekers with recruiters faster and more accurately.
Employers have to pay monthly subscription fees to access this feature. But it gives them early access to talented job seekers. And it offers additional features like Indeed Resume and Seen’s FastMatch Technology. The plan an employer selects determines the number of candidates they can contact within a month.
- Premium Company Pages
Indeed allows employers to build a custom company page and stand out from the crowd. With this premium feature, recruiters can reach out to talented applicants with a personalized and professional look. These could include corporate colors, page localization, images, and videos.
The premium subscription plan also helps employers understand the growth analytics of their company through competitor comparison and follower growth. They can also feature premium jobs and reviews on their company page. And recruiters can access this service by directly contacting Indeed’s support team.
Conclusion
Indeed has a simple yet effective business model for employers and job seekers. The platform makes money by ensuring that the talent search process for recruiters is more straightforward. While Indeed is a free platform for employers and job seekers, they offer advanced services at a premium price. This helps them stay ahead of their competition, and recruiters do not mind spending a small amount and simplifying this complex procedure.
Targeted job listings, hiring events, resume search, and branded company pages have helped make Indeed one of the world’s most profitable websites. And, though these services, is how Indeed makes money.
