Dive Brief:

• All direct job postings on Indeed now come with a video interview option, Indeed announced in a July 15 press release. Recruiters can now opt in to offering a video interview for both free and sponsored jobs, at no additional cost. 
• On average, employers get candidates into interviews 20% faster than in-person meetings or third-party digital interviews via the Indeed video call option, the company said. Prior to this announcement, Indeed had already hosted more than 500,000 video interviews.
• This update comes on the heels of the company’s hiring platform, which launched in March.

Dive Insight:

Early in the pandemic, shelter-in-place orders fueled a boom in recruiting technology. Indeed’s transformation from job site to job posting, hiring, and virtual interview platform is a natural one. 

And yet, this evolution comes at a precarious time. Throughout 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported record highs in U.S. job openings and quits. Indeed’s own data indicates a tug-of-war between employers and potential hires. In June 2021, its Hiring Lab surveyed 5,000 U.S. adults, including people in and out of the labor force, as well as employed and jobless workers. The main takeaway? As of summer 2021, most people are in no rush to start a new job. 

About 10% of survey respondents said they are "actively looking, urgently." A little less than 15% said they are "actively looking, not urgently." Approximately 45% of respondents said they are "passively searching" for a job, and 30% of respondents said they are "not open to searching." 

Broken down by employed respondent and jobless respondent, 30% of jobless respondents said they were only passively searching for a job. Slightly more than 30% of Indeed’s jobless respondents said they weren’t open to searching at all. 

Many unemployed workers attributed their lack of enthusiasm in the job search toward a number of factors: unemployment benefits and care responsibilities, but mostly a "financial cushion." The top-ranking job search deterrents were COVID-19 fears and an employed spouse.

Severe, national apathy toward labor and employment may seem like a hostile environment for a HR tech launch. However, Indeed appears to be banking on a job-seeker renaissance this fall. Unemployed, non-urgent job-seekers told Indeed they’ll ramp up their search "after time off this summer," school resumes in the fall, unemployment benefits or savings run out, and once vaccinations increase.

"With a mismatch in hiring urgency between employers and job seekers, it is crucial that employers have seamless hiring experiences that allow them to find talent in the right place, and at the right time," Indeed Senior Vice President Maggie Hulce said in the press release. "Virtual hiring can be the difference in making a quality hire quickly, as employer demand is surging above candidate supply."