A Common Question: What’s next with Indeed?
Over the past several weeks, conversations inside the CXR Community have been heating up around Indeed’s newest model, data expectations, and shifting product requirements. In response, we convened our first Community call dedicated entirely to Indeed. It drew more than forty leaders from across industries, along with several of the community’s trusted solution partners who joined to share what they’re seeing with their own customers.
Leaders across the CXR Community are wrestling with the same core question: “With all the changes Indeed is proposing, what should we do next?”
Recent posts in the forum capture the tension well:
- Concern that Indeed’s push for ATS data goes far beyond what is required to improve job visibility or performance.
- Confusion over what is mandatory versus optional
- Uncertainty about contract terms, verbal commitments, and how changes might impact budgets and forecasting.
- Interest in alternatives and a growing desire for more independence in sourcing strategies.
Key Themes from the Community Call
Across employers, recruitment marketing agencies, and solution providers, several themes showed up again and again.
The Situation Is Changing Daily
Every partner on the call echoed this reality: the guidance coming from Indeed is shifting quickly. Reps are sharing new information one week, and reversing or amending it the next. Many employers reported hearing contradictory answers depending on who they spoke with. Because of this, no one feels confident that any single answer today will be the same answer tomorrow. That uncertainty is driving much of the current anxiety.
Data Access Is the Biggest Flashpoint
The strongest shared concern was around the level of candidate and workflow data Indeed is requesting, especially through ATS integrations. Leaders questioned:
- What data is truly required to optimize performance
- Whether Indeed can segment or anonymize disposition and workflow information
- How data may be used to train future products, including sourcing tools
- How this aligns with internal data policies, legal review, and AI governance
Many Leaders Are Actively Pressing Pause
Given how fluid the guidance has been, many leaders are choosing caution over speed. Several companies have slowed their decision-making timelines while they gather more information, conduct internal risk reviews, or escalate technical concerns that haven’t yet been resolved.
In some cases, this means delaying implementation of Indeed Apply. In others, it means insisting on a site-scrape feed instead of a direct ATS feed to avoid unintended data flow. And in many cases, it means avoiding long-term or contractually binding commitments until the situation stabilizes.
Of course, not everyone has the luxury of stepping back. A number of leaders from healthcare, security, retail, and large hourly environments emphasized that Indeed remains their largest source of qualified applicants. For those orgs, the conversation becomes an exercise in risk balancing.
A Community Perspective
This conversation is far from over. The situation is evolving too quickly, and the stakes in TA - data, privacy, spend, candidate flow, reputation - are too high to rush.
What is clear is that leaders need a trusted space where they can ask candid questions, compare actual experiences, and push for clarity together. The CXR Community is uniquely positioned for exactly that: a mix of corporate leaders, trusted vendors, and practitioners who can bring transparency into a conversation that often feels opaque and fragmented.
We’ll continue to host these discussions because members asked for them, because the landscape is shifting fast, and because no one should have to navigate these changes in isolation.
Here are some additional sources from our Community:
What Comes Next
We will be hosting these Indeed discussions monthly for the foreseeable future. The next call is on December 18 at 2 pm Central and is now open for registration.
Every TA leader and the solution partners who work alongside them are welcome to join, bring questions, share updates, or simply listen and stay informed.
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