For job seekers in a hurry, Indeed is a gift. Using this one site, you can search through more job sites AND employer sites than any other single site. Indeed.com shows job seekers many more jobs than they would know how to find without it.

True "Job Search Engine"

Think of Indeed as a very specialized search engine, focused on job postings. It collects links to job postings from many sources.  Indeed.com is not a “job board.”   There are no jobs posted on Indeed and no resume database. When you view and apply for a job you have found through Indeed, you are using the Website where the job posting originated.  

The jobs included in the Indeed database:

1. Jobs posted on large sites like Monster, Dice, CareerBuilder, and many others
2. Jobs posted on local newspaper Websites and other online classifieds (but not Craigslist)
3. Jobs posted on smaller, regional, and niche job sites
4. Jobs posted on employer sites

Much as search engines operate, Indeed.com throws all those links to individual job postings into a giagantic database and adds powerful searching capabilities, Job Alerts, and RSS feeds.

Searching the Jobs on Indeed.com

The main search page is pretty simple with sets of search criteria available in the basic search - job title, keyword, or company name and location (city, state, and/or Zip Code). The “Advanced Job Search” function offer fine tuning capabilities (e.g. job type, job source, etc.) and “Preferences” on the search results page allow searchers to define some personal search parameters ( e.g. job publishing date, distance from a city or Zip Code, etc.). 

If a recent search needs to be repeated, the searcher can just click on the appropriate option from the choices available on the “My recent searches” list.

Using Indeed Search Results

The default sort for search results is Indeed’s measure of “relevance.”  Users can change that to “Date” so that the newest jobs are visible first simply by clicking on that option at the top of the search results pages. 

In addition, once a good search is developed (typically easy to do), click on the “Save this search as an email job alert” or “RSS feed” to have results automatically available every day.

Search Refinements

Indeed offers very handy options, called “Refinements,” on the search results page that provide useful options for narrowing the search results.  If they are not visible, clicking on the “Refine Your Search” link at the top of the results will show them in the left column of the search results pages.

Refinement options include:

1. Title – Indeed summarizes the results by job title, displaying the top 5 results, based on the number of responses.  Clicking on a job title changes the search results to match the option chosen.
2. Company – Indeed summarizes the results by company/employer, giving the option to see the jobs listed for a single employer.
3. Location – Indeed summarizes the results by city or city and state, as appropriate.
4. Job Type – Indeed offers 5 different job type categories: Full-time, Part-Time, Contract, Internship, and Temporary.  Clicking on any of those options changes the search results to display only that job type.
5. Employer/Recruiter – by default, both recruiter and employer job postings are included in the search results, but either source can be removed from the search results by choosing the other option.

This kind of site has appeared before, but not as well-implemented as this version. Often the sites were not very effective because the job postings were usually old.  However, Indeed updates their database relentlessly.

Indeed.com won the top slot in Job-Hunt’s list of the Best Job Sites of 2006 because it provides job seekers with the “widest net” for their search. It has been called "one stop shopping" and that's appropriate.

-------------------------------------------------
About the author...

Susan P. Joyce is a 1994 "graduate of" (a.k.a. "laid off by") Digital Equipment Corporation, the 2nd largest computer company in the world at the time, and now gone. Prior to her Digital Equipment experience, she worked in Harvard University's Personnel Office and an HR consulting firm. Susan has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. In 1998, her company, NETability, Inc. purchased Job-Hunt.org, and Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt since then.

Return to Job-Hunt Home.