Hisayuki Idekoba hears regularly about how broken hiring can feel.
As head of the job platform Indeed, job seekers tell him they have applied to roles only to get nothing back, while employers complain about unresponsive candidates and surging application volumes, thanks in part to AI bots that flood open roles with résumés.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” Idekoba said.
He wants to break that loop by making Indeed’s matching tools feel more like help from a recruiter for people applying cold. That means guiding job seekers toward roles where they are more likely to gain traction, while helping employers focus on applicants who are serious and relevant.
Idekoba said better matching could discourage fruitless applications. He gave the example of a restaurant worker applying for a $200,000 engineering job rather than pursuing a more appropriate restaurant-management position.
Ultimately, Idekoba said, the goal is to make better matches on both sides of the process.
“How can we make sure job seekers are a real person, and it’s not an AI application, and they’re serious, and they’re qualified,” he said. “And how can we have real employers who are really trying to fill positions?”
Indeed is navigating some of the same tensions Idekoba described. In July, it began a limited US test of Apply For Me, a tool that could automatically submit applications for job seekers. About a month later, it paused the feature after receiving feedback, saying it would instead focus on having users review drafted applications before hitting “submit.”
The other 96%
Questions about AI’s role in the job search are unfolding in a labor market where few people are changing jobs. Overall job postings on Indeed were 1.8% above their pre-pandemic level in mid-August, though postings in areas like software development remain lower, underscoring how uneven conditions can be for people hunting for a job.
Idekoba said Indeed data show that only 4% of US job changers, with at least a high-school degree, switched jobs last year with the help of a recruiter contacting them. The other 96%, he said, are left to apply on their own, often dozens of times, without receiving any responses.
The frustrating silence some job seekers experience comes as recruiters are often sorting through more applications, with fewer colleagues to help.
Greenhouse, which makes applicant-tracking software, analyzed some 640 million applications from more than 6,000 companies between 2022 and 2025. It found that applications per job more than doubled over that period, while the average number of recruiters per organization fell 56%.
Jalonni Weaver, an in-house recruiter at a life insurance firm near Dallas, said that in her prior roles, spikes in applicants meant there wasn’t always time to review each résumé. Such buildups, she said, can push employers to use technology to automatically screen candidates.
That can turn the early stage of hiring into an AI-to-AI loop, Weaver said, as job seekers use chatbots to polish résumés and sometimes submit applications, while employers rely on the technology to sort applicants.
Those systems often only look for a narrow set of keywords and can miss transferable experience, she said.
“We’re not hiring for perfection,” Weaver said. “We’re hiring for that real human, and we’re hiring for your experience.”
Trying to verify both sides
The flood of automated applications has also put a premium on verification, Idekoba said.
Indeed said it verifies employers before new job postings appear, a process that can include checking a work email associated with an employer and using a third-party identity check.
The company also limits how long employers can post roles for free, which can require them to take an additional step to keep a listing live.
For job seekers, Indeed uses phone verification among other measures to confirm a person’s identity. It is also testing with select employers a feature that lets candidates show employers independently verified professional licenses.
Verification can help establish who is applying, though Idekoba said some employers also need to change how they evaluate job seekers.
“You got 1,000 applications, and you think all 1,000 people are not qualified?” Idekoba said. “Something’s wrong.”
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