Interview with Paul Forster – Indeed

After another round of expansions, the Indeed job search engine now has a presence in 25 countries. We got in touch with co-founder and CEO Paul Forster to find out where Indeed has the strongest presence, whether he thinks job search engines and traditional portals can co-exist, and what Indeed’s future aims are.

How does Indeed work for employers, and what is its business model?

Indeed is the most comprehensive search engine for jobs, with more job searches than any other employment website in the US. Indeed is also the leading pay-for-performance recruitment advertising network (advertisers only pay when job seekers click on their ads), driving millions of targeted candidates to jobs in every field and representing the most cost-effective source of candidates for thousands of organisations.

The Indeed network recently expanded again and now covers a total of 25 countries. Why is coverage of multiple markets such a strong focus at Indeed?

A search engine for jobs makes sense for job seekers in every country and so we are committed to providing our service worldwide. In the last 18 months, Indeed has expanded its coverage from a few English-language markets to 25 countries on six continents and in 10 languages. We link to all of these country sites on our home page.

Where is Indeed most successful? In which markets is it facing the most challenges in becoming the jobs website of choice?

We are most dominant in the US. In January 2010, indeed.com had more job search traffic than any other employment website in the US (comScore Media Metrix). We see more direct competition in other markets, but overall Indeed’s network is the leading search engine for jobs worldwide, with over 1 billion job searches and 27 million unique users per month.

What are the most recent audience figures for Indeed in its US and UK markets?

Indeed’s US site – indeed.com – received more than 16 million unique visitors and 340 million page views in January 2010, and Indeed’s UK site – indeed.co.uk – received over 1.1 million unique visitors and 8 million page views in January.

In a number of the markets Indeed covers, Simply Hired has also set up a job search engine. Does Indeed see room for more than one job search engine per market?

We stay laser-focused on our goals – to be the best place on the web for job seekers to find jobs and for recruiters to find candidates. We give people a better chance of finding a job than does any other service and keep our services free for job seekers.

Can job search engines co-exist alongside traditional portals? Do you see the pay-per-post model gradually dying out?

The search engine for jobs – including Indeed – will increasingly become the starting point for people’s job searches and a key component of most recruitment advertising campaigns. Pay-per-click will be offered as a payment option by more and more job sites, making recruitment advertising increasingly targeted and cost-effective. In the current environment, marketers need to deploy their advertising budgets as efficiently as possible – and typically no marketing channel has a higher return on investment than PPC search marketing.

What are Indeed’s goals and plans for the next 12 months?

Indeed will continue to be the most comprehensive and relevant search engine for jobs. We’ll continue to improve our product with the aim of becoming the starting point for everyone’s job searches, worldwide.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.