Are You Seeing Fewer Indeed Applicants?

You’re not alone.  

In the past few weeks, we’ve fielded many calls from clients concerned about their visibility and applicant volume from Indeed, specifically regarding organic (free) postings. We know the cleaning and security industries are scrambling to fill front line positions so any variation in applicant volume hurts. As with most things in the job board world, straightforward answers are nearly impossible to obtain so we did what we normally do: We went directly to our contacts and worked with sales reps to piece together the full story around why you’re seeing fewer Indeed applicants. Here’s what we found. 

Content rules were loosened last year for ‘essential’ worker industries.   

Even if you’re not considered a ‘Recruitment–Based Company’, content like job titles and job descriptions may get your job postings filtered out. If you’ve worked directly with a Kwantek account manager over the years, then you know how important a good post is to the Indeed algorithm. Green field jobs with ‘spammy’ titles are almost guaranteed to be marked ‘sponsor only’. There is now more scrutiny on your job posts, so make sure you’re following our posting suggestions.    

More companies are sponsoring.   

The pandemic has forced a lot of our traditional applicants out of the workforce. Therefore, the competition for employees has amped up over the past few months, leading to companies increasing their job sponsorship budgets. Indeed is like any other marketplace — the job postings with the most dollars behind them get the highest priority and we’re in a bit of a bidding war. So even if you follow all the rules, your organic posts may not show up on the first 4-5 pages simply due to the number of competing sponsored job posts.   

You may be considered a recruitment–based company.   

Do you remember all the way back to 2019 and Indeed’s decision to define security and cleaning companies as recruitment–based companies? In a nutshell, if you hire people to work at another company’s location, Indeed considers you to be a recruitment–based company and will require you to sponsor (pay) for your job postings. It doesn’t matter if you use an ATS (like Kwantek) or post directly to the site. Last year when the pandemic hit, Indeed suspended these rules to help front–line employers fill positions, but that ended in late March of 2021.  If you’re labeled a recruitment–based company, you’ll have to appeal directly with Indeed and work with an Indeed account manager. ATS’s are not allowed to advocate directly with Indeed on your behalf.  

Navigating these issues takes diligence, effort and possibly an increased budget. Our most successful clients work very closely with both their TEAM account manager and Indeed to ensure adequate applicant volume. It’s also important to evaluate applicant sources to ensure you’re focusing on your best source of hires. We tend to see a higher percentage of hires coming from your careers page than third party websites.