Business Insurance

How does Indeed work?

Want to learn more about the popular job site Indeed before using it to hire someone new? We explain how to post jobs and advertise, as well as how Indeed makes money.

Indeed is a popular job seeking site used by millions of prospective employees to find a new role. For employers, it’s a good opportunity to tap into the pool of qualified and experienced potential employees to help their business continue to grow or just tick along.

As a business, Indeed works by charging employers a fee for sponsoring a job listing. A sponsored listing or ‘ad’ will show the listing to more job seekers who are searching for jobs like yours.

The fee will be in the form of a Pay Per Click (PPC) model, which means how much you pay depends on how many people click on the listing. But, you’re able to set limits based on how much you’re comfortable spending.

If you’re a small business taking on staff for the first time, then remember that you must have employers’ liability insurance. This insurance is compulsory for any business with staff, and will help protect against compensation claims by current or former employees. There’s a hefty fine for not having this as it’s required by law.

How to advertise a job on Indeed?

To advertise a job on Indeed, the first thing you need to do is create an account on their employers side of the website, called ‘Indeed for employers’. Once you’ve created an account, there will be a ‘Post a job’ button in the top left of the page.

You’ll now start going through and following the on-page instructions on creating your job ad. This includes having to spend time filling out the job’s details, such as the job description and everything else you want a prospective employee to know. Including details such as benefits and being transparent about the salary will help increase the number of applicants.

When setting up the ad, you have the option of adding in screener questions. These will pop up during the application process, helping to verify if a candidate meets the criteria you’re looking for without having to manually sift through CVs or wait until the interview stage to ask follow-up questions.

Once the actual job application stage is done, you should decide whether to sponsor the post or leave it as an unsponsored post. A sponsored post is when you put some money behind your job ad to make it more visible to candidates. While a standard listing is free, it won’t be as prominent and may not attract as many applicants.

A sponsored post will appear at the top or bottom of any job search that’s relevant to your ad, and won’t fall back onto other pages. An unsponsored post however, will eventually go back a few pages and won’t be very noticeable.

How much to post a job on indeed?

If you only want to post an unsponsored job ad, then it’s free to post a job on Indeed. However, if you want your job ad to be more prominent and attract plenty of applicants, then you should consider creating a sponsored post which will cost money.

The amount it costs to post a job on Indeed depends entirely on your budget and how much you want to spend. Indeed uses a ‘PPC’ model, meaning ‘Pay Per Click’, so the amount you pay depends on the amount of people who click on the ad and the cost of each click.

How much control you have over the cost is whether you opt for the simple or advanced charging structure. A simple charging structure means you set a daily or monthly amount that will automatically renew, and Indeed optimises and manages your maximum CPC (Cost Per Click).

The ideal daily budget, Indeed says, depends on the job you’re offering, how urgently you need to fill the position, and the job’s location. For instance, the sooner you need to make a hire, the higher you should be willing to pay for each click to try and get as many applications as possible.

To give a rough ballpark figure, it could cost anywhere between £0.10 - £2.00 per click when a job seeker clicks on your sponsored post. But you can pause a sponsored ad at any time if you’ve decided you’ve spent enough. For example, if you pause the ad after spending £35, you will only end up paying £35.

How does Indeed make money?

Indeed makes its money from the revenue of the pay per click sponsored ads. When you pay to list your sponsored ad, the money goes directly to Indeed.

It’s worth reiterating that there are no hidden costs associated with posting a job on Indeed. So you won’t be paying Indeed a fee for deciding to post a job or withdraw the ad for example.

Overview

Indeed can be a great place to start looking for your next new hire. The sponsored tools allow you to make your job ads visible to millions of potential employees, but if budgets are tight or there’s no rush to hire any time soon, there are free options available.

If you’re a small business and you’re hiring for the first time, make sure you’ve taken out employers’ liability insurance. This insurance is compulsory for a business with a single employee or more, and will protect the business against compensation claims by former as well as current employees. As it’s legally required to have, there’s a hefty fine for not having it.

Erin Yurday

Erin Yurday is the Founder and Editor of NimbleFins. Prior to NimbleFins, she worked as an investment professional and as the finance expert in Stanford University's Graduate School of Business case writing team. Read more on LinkedIn.

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