COVID-19 has led companies all over the world to change the way they operate, fast. For Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise at Indeed, Maggie Hulce, what began as a major business disruption has fostered innovation that could have lasting benefits. Indeed's recently launched virtual interviewing solution is already making hiring more efficient, cost-effective, and inclusive for companies and job seekers.
Maggie is passionate about helping people access opportunity and reach their potential. "Indeed's mission to help people get jobs has never felt more important than it does at this moment. I believe giving people the tools they need to find all available jobs, helping them see what's possible, is so important for our society," she says.
Throughout this year, Maggie and her team have had the opportunity to take on significant challenges. By exploring new solutions, like those that leverage virtual interviewing to enable a more direct interview experience, her team has reduced the interview process to days instead of weeks for clients across many industries.
Maggie Hulce Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise at Indeed
Virtual hiring as a response to COVID-19
Before the pandemic, employers felt reluctant to change their existing screening and in-person interview approaches. This sentiment shifted almost overnight with the need to make the hiring process safe for everyone involved. In response, Indeed pivoted to help companies and job seekers learn to interview virtually.
While Indeed had worked on enabling virtual events before the pandemic, the shift from physical to virtual rapidly accelerated once lockdowns began. The first step was to enable hiring events to integrate with third party interviewing platforms. The team then immediately began building Indeed's own interviewing platform, designed to make the process more delightful and efficient for both employers and job seekers.
For the vast majority of companies, interviewing virtually was entirely new, so Indeed worked to make the solution really easy-to-use. Indeed's end-to-end solution automates the manual and time consuming tasks leading up to the interview - candidate attraction, screening, scheduling, reminders and provides the virtual interviewing platform so employers can focus on engaging with candidates. As the leader of Indeed's product, engineering, and go-to-market teams focused on Enterprise customers, Maggie has been involved in every step of the development process for the company's virtual hiring solution.
"I want to inspire people to drive meaningful change together," Maggie says, "but what does that mean in practice? For me, it means having an expectation that we should be constantly innovating and challenging the status quo, and doing so with optimism that things can change. Every problem has a solution, some just take longer to find."
Both employers and job seekers have embraced Indeed's solution for automation to the interview. More than 4,800 employers have held over 20,000 virtual hiring events globally since January 2020.*1
Job seekers that pass screening questions can immediately select an interview time slot
Employers tell us this offering has reduced both their time to hire and cost per hire dramatically. Job seekers love that there is no software to download and that there's no waiting or wondering where they stand in the process. If they meet the objective screening criteria for the position, they immediately progress to schedule their interview.
Accelerating innovation
Maggie believes direct interviewing solutions that leverage automation can become the new normal. "No question COVID has helped accelerate the transition to virtual hiring. But even after COVID, I believe the changes can stick, as clients find they can build more diverse teams, more efficiently, when they embrace automated and virtual hiring solutions."
Innovating how employers hire, in markets around the world, also requires drawing upon diverse global expertise. The Indeed University program is one way Indeed cultivates the next generation of global tech talent. This year, Indeed University teams are all focusing on elements of the virtual interviewing experience for job seekers, small businesses and enterprises.
For Maggie, continued innovation requires a combination of passion, purpose, and creativity. "As a team, we feel passionate about making the hiring process simpler, faster and more fair. This effort aligns with our shared purpose - to help people get jobs - all over the world. Lastly, we are focused on bringing creative and diverse thinking to how we can automate steps in the hiring process, improving the experience for both job seekers and employers."
*1 As of the end of October, 2020.