Indeed Seeks to Remind Job Seekers That, in Fact, They Are Needed

The job search, like the tax code, has become something most Americans experience as a form of low-grade punishment. Indeed, the online employment marketplace that has come to serve as the primary national clearinghouse for help-wanted listings, is now trying to soothe the national anxiety with a new campaign that promises, in essence, that someone out there is actually reading those applications.

The campaign, called "Jobs Need People," positions Indeed not as the searchable database it has been for two decades but as what the company calls an "AI powered matching engine." The shift reflects a broader repositioning effort by the Austin-based company, which is part of the Japanese conglomerate Recruit Holdings and competes with LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and the stubborn persistence of personal connections.

The commercials, shot on film in what the industry still regards as a marker of sincerity, feature workers across a range of occupations — radiologists, servers, flight attendants, chefs — accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations meant to suggest that jobs are, fundamentally, human problems waiting for human solutions. (This is the sort of observation that sounds profound in a conference room and obvious everywhere else.)

The timing is not incidental. A company survey found that 81 percent of applicants report never hearing back from employers, while more than half assume they will not be qualified for the jobs they are applying for. The average job seeker, Indeed said, spends six hours a day in the application process, which is to say slightly less time than the average American spends not thinking about the application process.

"People are applying, and many may not hear back," Jennifer Warren, the company's global vice president for brand marketing and creative, told Adweek. "It's making them not feel seen."

The campaign will begin in the United States across television, streaming, YouTube, and social media before expanding into other markets. Indeed said 31 people are hired through its platform every minute, a statistic that is either reassuring or quietly terrifying, depending on your current employment status.

Original story published in adweek.com: "Indeed Wants to Make Hiring Feel Human Again as AI Disrupts the Job Market"