Indeed: Search jobs, don’t browse

There are apparently millions of jobs out there, at least that’s what everyone used to tell me when I was the eternal student hopping from one graduate programme to the next. In this society of the unemployed? Where are these jobs?

Turns out you have to know where to look.

Indeed you do. Indeed.co.za says they have created a way to make job hunting “easier and much better”. The site claims to give job seekers free access to thousands of jobs from hundreds of company websites, recruitment agencies and job boards.

How is that different from what Monster, CareerJunction, Careers24 and all the other job sites do?

The US-based startup with a distinctly South African site (Indeed SA) feel it fills a particular gap in the job market.

The key difference with this online jobs site is that it goes primarily as a vertical job search engine as opposed to conventional jobs sites that mostly require users to browse through job categories. In many ways, it’s a more “Google approach” to jobs.

“In contrast to conventional job boards that only display jobs from their clients, we put job seekers first by allowing them to search jobs from thousands of company career sites and job boards – instantly – in a single search. This helps job seekers find opportunities they otherwise would not have found,” says Indeed.

Launched in 2010 by co-founders Paul Forster and Rony Kahan — who also created Jobsinthemoney, a job site for finance professionals in the US, which was acquired in late 2003, Indeed is a privately held company with investors including The New York Times Company, Allen and Company and Union Square Ventures. Indeed has to date received US$5-million in funding.

I decided to give Indeed a try. After all there are “millions” of jobs out there for a qualified young professional such as myself. I typed in ‘Journalist’ and specified my location as ‘Cape Town’. Apparently the phrase “millions of jobs” isn’t too far off; a lot of companies in Cape Town are looking for writers/journalist.

The search pulled up results from Bizcommunity, Careers24, Gumtree and other job sites. So essentially what Indeed does is crawl the web looking for jobs for a specified field and aggregates them for the job seeker in one place.

The site is fairly easy to use. Get on the site and search for a job in your specified area. You can create a personalised ‘my.indeed’ account where they can save their preferred jobs and notes permanently, these can be accessed from any computer. The site also offers a mobile site and “Indeed app” for job seekers, clearly this site recognises the nature of the young professional.

According to the startup, its goal is to be the best place on the web for South African job seekers to find jobs and for recruiters to find candidates. And staying “laser-focused” is the key to achieving that goal.

“We give people a better chance of finding a job. More than any other service and keep our services free for job seekers. We only charge recruitment advertisers for each click on their sponsored ads, resulting in a cost effective supply of targeted candidates and extremely high return on investment,” says the company.

Indeed feels the vertical search or aggregation model it’s provided is “highly effective” for both job seekers and recruiters.

“For job seekers, its comprehensive job search allows users to search thousands of jobs from hundreds of job boards and companies. For recruiters and employers, pay-for-performance pricing enables them to reach targeted candidates cost effectively.”

Indeed has a global coverage that represents 53 countries, seven continents and 24 languages.

“We want job seekers in every country to benefit from the fresh and relevant job listings that Indeed provides.”