Recruitment has long been a market ripe for revolution, as any hiring manager knows only too well. Already struggling to identify real quality amid a deluge of data, AI has now turbocharged the challenges: applications per vacancy have surged 239% since ChatGPT launched in 2022, according to software firm Greenhouse, and technology can only partially solve the problem, while creating entire new ones around bias and candidate experience.

Online job giant Indeed believes it can drag the market towards a better future, and ride out a volatile economic outlook some commentators fear could turn into an industry-wide crisis. But AI is, in the overarching vision of CMO James Whitemore, “a catalyst, not the compass”, a tool to unite the business behind key outcomes—candidates getting the right jobs and employers finding the right people—rather than focusing simply on brand awareness or top of funnel.

“Operating a two-sided marketplace changes how we plan and execute,” says Whitemore, who joined the business in June 2025. “Brand, performance, product and sales can’t operate as separate motions. Brand builds trust and intent, performance captures demand, and product experiences convert that intent into hiring outcomes. Our role in marketing is to shorten the distance from discovery to hire.”

Indeed is synonymous with online recruitment, but in fact remains a relative insurgent. Founded in 2004 as a deliberately lean start-up, it grew under the radar to vanquish rivals such as Monster.com and achieve huge scale. In 2012, it was taken over by Recruit, a Japanese multinational that had its roots in print recruitment ads and wanted a digital pivot (it later purchased Glassdoor). Today, Indeed, which Recruit says operates autonomously, has an 11,000-strong workforce and a presence in 60 countries, claiming to find 27 people new jobs every minute through its pile-’em-high approach to job boards.

Its marketing strategy has matured significantly over its history. Initially transactional, since around 2019 the business has placed greater emphasis on brand (unsurprisingly, given it is in a search-based market where differentiation is tricky) and also made a determined investment in the Indeed Hiring Lab, a source of PR material and content marketing on the global job market which utilises the firm’s “key differentiator”, millions of data points on job outcomes and hiring needs.

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