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Cool, so hey guys, my name is Chris Colòn and I'm a software engineer for Indeed.com. For those of you who aren't familiar with Indeed, we are the number one job search site worldwide. I've been with Indeed for four years. Before that, I attended the University of Illinois. Are there any Illini here? Yes, cool! Awesome to see you.
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In the last year and a half, I've been working on Indeed's newest product called Indeed Prime. I will talk about that later, but right now, I want to discuss something that many of us in this room probably experience: recruiters and the recruiting messages we receive.
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So, just a show of hands, who here has received a message from a recruiter on a daily or weekly basis? Yeah, I see we have some engineers in the room, awesome! Now, who here has gotten an awful recruiting message? Okay, cool, I see more hands up.
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I was talking with some of my colleagues about the messages they receive. One of my colleagues mentioned that a recruiter would contact her once or twice a week, but always after 10 PM. I asked if he was in Tokyo or something, considering the time difference, but no, he was just leaving her voicemail messages because he was drunk. That's definitely not the type of recruiter I want to talk to.
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Another coworker described how he received multiple messages from one recruiter. The first message said, 'Hey Juan, we saw your resume and think you'd be a great fit for the company. Reach back to us.' My colleague didn't respond to that first message, so the recruiter sent a follow-up message: 'Hey Juan, we really looked at your resume and think you'd be a great fit. Just talk to us for 5-10 minutes.' Still no response.
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The third message stated, 'Hey Juan, don't mean to bother you. If we could just get five or ten minutes of your time, that'd be great. Thanks.' Those messages don't sound that bad unless you realize Juan isn't actually Juan; his name was Amanda. They got the name wrong as well as the gender, which isn't what you want from a recruiter.
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The other frustration with recruiting messages is that even if you get a good one, you might still be approached by low-quality companies. I've had companies contact me with offers that were half the salary I was making. I don't care how good the company is; I'm not going to take a pay cut. You also get companies that are just cold calling, reaching out to hundreds of engineers without even knowing if you're a match.
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For instance, I have a friend who is a game designer and gets contacted by finance and banking companies that have nothing to do with his experience because they are just cold calling. Another issue is unresponsive companies during the recruiting process.
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I'll get a message from a recruiter, and it seems like a good one. I'll respond back and say, 'Hey, I’m interested. Give me some more information.' And then I never hear back from them. It feels like they just go and play ping pong at their tech office or something.
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There was a colleague of mine who went through the entire interview process, was told he would get an offer, but then never heard back for weeks. He started looking for other jobs, ended up interviewing, and by a month later, was working for Indeed. He got contacted again by the original company that said they finally had the budget to hire him. At that point, he was just like, 'That's fine, I’m already employed.'
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And so, there are many issues with recruiting messages right now that cause us engineers to sift through a lot of noise: bad messages, low-quality companies, and unresponsive companies. It makes it really hard to find a job.
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I was interviewing a really awesome candidate for Indeed who had a great resume, and I noticed he wasn't currently employed. I asked him what he was doing, and he said his full-time job was looking for a job. He had so many phone screens, interviews, and emails to respond to that it was just too much.
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So, there must be a better way. Obviously, I work for Indeed, and indeed helps people get jobs. A lot of us engineers don't really have to apply for jobs; we just need to pay attention to the recruiting messages and figure out who's worth talking to.
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So, we thought, let's create Indeed Prime, a product to help top talent get jobs. At its most basic level, Indeed Prime connects top talent with top employers. When I was building this tool, I wanted to keep a few things in mind.
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The first was to create an easy application flow. I hate writing resumes and profiles. I wanted something where I could just provide some basic information, and someone would do the work for me. I also desired a portal with quality employers where I wouldn't have to worry about low-quality or unresponsive companies reaching out.
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Transparency in messages was important to me as well. Sometimes recruiters send overly cryptic messages, stating something like 'We want a junior developer' without mentioning the company name or any other pertinent details.
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To achieve this, I made it a requirement for employers to provide clear information in their messages. When they reach out, I want to know who they are, what their offers are, and any relocation or equity options available.
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I also wanted it to be easy for candidates to express interest or disinterest in messages they receive. So, when candidates receive emails, we added buttons that simply say 'Interested' or 'Not Interested'. This leads to a ninety percent response rate, which is amazing. I, myself, respond to only two percent of the recruiting messages I get.
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There's a quote I want to share: 'At the end of the day, a single Indeed Prime interview request is worth a dozen traditional applications.' That encapsulates exactly what I wanted to build.
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I'm excited about the product we created. You should totally try it out! We will have a booth tomorrow and Friday with an HTC virtual reality setup—that's super cool! I'll be there to share more about the Indeed Prime tech stack. We are also having another session diving deeper into what Indeed Prime is and some resume tips as well.
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If you see anyone in blue and orange shirts, feel free to reach out to us for more information or to sign up. Thank you all, have a great Rails conference, and may the force be with you.
