Indeed and ZipRecruiter are competing online job listing sites that are often the go-to sources for job seekers looking for their next opportunity. Both vendors allow you to post open job opportunities with the core purpose of sourcing applicants; however, their approaches are vastly different. Finding the best job posting sites depends on your preferences, such as budgetary restrictions or the amount and quality of sourced candidates.
- Indeed: Best for general talent needs and those who want their openings seen on the most used job board for job seekers.
- ZipRecruiter: Best for industry-specific talent and sourcing multiple positions at once.
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ZipRecruiter vs Indeed: Which platform is right for you?
Pricing
Subscription-based
Sponsored ad-based
Candidate sourcing
Job post distributor
Job post aggregator
Candidate management
Employer dashboard and built-in ATS
Employer dashboard and ATS hybrid
Applicant experience
Apply in ZipRecruiter
Occasionally have to apply on other sources
Reporting
Job posting insights
Job market trends and job posting insights
ZipRecruiter
ZipRecruiter has a wide job posting distribution network of over 100 job boards. This means you can post your open positions and ZipRecruiter automatically syndicates them to all of the job boards in its network.
ZipRecruiter also has an intuitive artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that parses applicant résumés, determines if they may be a match for the open role, and invites candidates to apply. If you have massive hiring quotas and need to fill positions quickly, these features can amass a qualified candidate pool with little effort.
Despite this, the large volume of applications that ZipRecruiter sources for an open job position can be overwhelming. This may be a turn-off if you need more time or resources to screen candidates closely. However, larger employers may appreciate the number of applications, as it allows them to be choosier in their selection without worrying about a lack of qualified applicants.
Pros
- AI candidate matching and inviting.
- Job candidate ranking.
- Attentive customer service.
- Mobile app.
- Customizable job post templates.
- Applicant tracking system (ATS) integrations such as Greenhouse, JazzHR, Zoho Recruit, and Breezy HR.
Cons
- Unclear pricing.
- No skills assessments.
- ATS integration options only on Pro plan.
- Does not post to competing job boards, like Indeed, Monster, or CareerBuilder.
Indeed
Indeed is perfect if you’re sourcing talent on a budget because it is free. You can post as many open positions as needed without buying into a subscription-based plan.
In addition, you have access to Indeed’s free job hiring insights tool, where you can view trends in job-specific roles. This allows you to strategically pinpoint marketplaces without posting your open position on multiple job boards.
There is one major drawback: Because Indeed is a free tool for both recruiters and job seekers, it is easy for job openings to get lost in the mix of competing job posts. Unless you pay to get your job posting sponsored, Indeed may not be the right fit for sourcing talent for urgently needed positions.
Pros
- Interview scheduling.
- Budget-controlled pricing.
- Company pages.
- Mobile app.
- Large candidate pool.
- Built-in ATS software functions.
Cons
- Does not distribute job posts elsewhere.
- Customer service is limited to online help forums or through email.
- Google Chrome Indeed Recruiter Extension can only transfer data to a limited number of ATSs, such as Greenhouse, Bullhorn, and Workday.
ZipRecruiter vs Indeed: A detailed comparison
Pricing
ZipRecruiter and Indeed follow different pricing ideologies. ZipRecruiter has a subscription-based tier model, whereas Indeed’s pricing requires the purchase of ad space to reach a wider audience. Which model works better depends on several factors, such as hiring needs, budgetary constraints, and the nature of the open role itself.
Pricing
$16 – $24 per post per day; Monthly packages (starting at $299)
Free to post; Sponsored job postings (starting at $5 per day)
Free Plan
No
Yes
Free Trial
Yes
N/A
Budget Control
No
Yes
Candidate sourcing
Although ZipRecruiter and Indeed are job boards in name, how they source candidates differs significantly. As a job distributor, ZipRecruiter focuses on getting job posts to appear in as many places as possible. Meanwhile, as a job aggregator, Indeed collects as many job posts from around the web as possible to appear in one place. Determining the best method ultimately depends on how you plan to interact with each solution during the recruitment process.
ZipRecruiter automatically distributes your job posts to over 100 job boards across the web, except for competitors like Indeed, Monster, and CareerBuilder. ZipRecruiter’s primary goal is to get as many relevant job seekers to see the job post as possible. To aid in this effort, ZipRecruiter uses AI to scan résumés from other job boards and invite qualified candidates to apply.
Depending on the subscription tier, you can leverage additional tools, such as TrafficBoost to promote your position further to subscribers of ZipRecruiter emails. If you have significant hiring needs and are searching for a candidate in highly specialized roles, there is a greater likelihood of a qualified candidate seeing your job post.
However, because ZipRecruiter casts such a wide net when searching for candidates and does not regulate the number of applications received, there is a potential for human resources (HR) teams to be flooded with applicants.
While ZipRecruiter offers screening capabilities to whittle down candidates, small businesses may need more than one person to evaluate incoming candidate applications. On the other hand, larger companies with the resources to effectively manage candidates may appreciate the steady stream of applicants to choose from if a new hire does not work out.
Unlike ZipRecruiter, Indeed does not distribute job postings but aggregates them from across the web. In other words, Indeed functions similarly to a job search engine. Job seekers can instantly see job openings from hundreds of online job boards, including specific industries such as engineering, medicine, education, or nonprofits.
This approach can be either a benefit or a drawback for recruiting teams. On the one hand, job aggregator sites like Indeed are attractive to candidates—it functions as one-stop-shopping for open job opportunities. On the other hand, you are at risk of getting your job postings lost in the mix because Indeed does not distribute their postings elsewhere.
Unless you sponsor your job posting and use extra features like Instant Match to increase visibility, you are limited to search result pages in either Indeed or Google. If you are looking to source candidates quickly, you may need to post your open positions to both a career aggregator site like Indeed and a job distributor like ZipRecruiter to increase qualified applicant counts.
ZipRecruiter. Here’s why: By posting to multiple other job search sites, ZipRecruiter garners more traffic to a job post, so you can receive potential candidates quickly. In contrast, as a job aggregator, Indeed’s approach is more job seeker-friendly, but this can hurt your chances of sticking out among competing postings.
Candidate management
Neither ZipRecruiter nor Indeed are complete applicant tracking systems; the tools for managing candidates once sourced are limited.
Both solutions utilize an employer dashboard that collects job applicants in one location to be filtered and screened. Although both ZipRecruiter and Indeed leverage screening questions to assist in ranking qualified candidates, Indeed includes additional features, like skills assessments and interview scheduling, to streamline the hiring process.
Employer Dashboard
Yes
Yes
Screening Questions
Yes
Yes
Skills Assessments
No
Yes
Interview Scheduling
No
Yes
Candidate management software can help you during the hiring process. Read more: Top Candidate Relationship Management Software
ZipRecruiter provides two ways to screen candidates: through screening questions developed by the employer or through ZipRecruiter’s AI. You can use screening questions to reduce the number of applicants for manual screening. These questions can range from simple yes-or-no questions to free-form questions to understand a candidate’s experience better. You can even mark “deal breaker” to hide applicants who did not answer the question satisfactorily.
ZipRecruiter’s AI parses résumés and places potentially great matches higher up in the dashboard over others. After reviewing the résumés and applications, you can then rate the pre-sorted candidates to train the AI to select candidates to fit your criteria more accurately.
Unless integrated with an ATS solution, you will have to look through each candidate’s application manually and reach out directly to candidates to arrange an interview, conduct background checks or reference checks, or collect additional assessments. Because of this, ZipRecruiter may not be cost-effective for small businesses that use it as their only hiring tool.
Compared to ZipRecruiter, Indeed bridges the gap between a regular job board and an ATS. Employers can create “screener” questions, similar to ZipRecruiter, to narrow down qualified candidates. Indeed also allows you to select deal-breaker questions to deprioritize candidates who do not answer satisfactorily.
However, qualified candidates can be further filtered using skills assessment, giving you access to over 200 skills tests ranging from data entry to automotive maintenance and even a phone interview for applicants to record responses. You can then compare candidate applications, résumés, and assessments and advance the candidates that best satisfy your requirements.
Indeed includes native interview scheduling for candidates. This, along with Indeed’s skill assessments, screener questions, and filtering functions, helps to quickly develop a shortlist of top candidates. Additional capabilities like messaging candidates, email templates, and note sharing allow you to collaborate with internal stakeholders to streamline hiring without integrating third-party services.
Indeed has the feel of a large-scale ATS without the associated cost. With features to manage candidates from application to job acceptance, Indeed makes the hiring process more efficient, even for businesses with limited hiring needs.
Indeed. Here’s why: Indeed includes ATS functions, such as skills assessments and interview scheduling, to quickly pinpoint qualified candidates to move to the next hiring stage. Moreover, because these features are all native to Indeed, you don’t have to spend time or money bouncing from one solution to another.
Applicant experience
To reach suitable candidates, consider what aspects are most important to job seekers when interacting with job listing sites. The best sites allow job seekers to quickly identify positions that fit their skill set, assist in making their applications stand out, and provide opportunities for engagement with hiring employers.
ZipRecruiter and Indeed are free for job seekers and include mobile applications to easily apply to positions from any device. Beyond this, ZipRecruiter and Indeed offer different functions to attract job seekers.
Mobile App
Yes
Yes
Company Pages
No
Yes
AI Assistant
Yes
No
Because it is a job distribution platform, when job seekers use ZipRecruiter, they are applying to positions initially posted to the site and not drawn from other job boards. This means job seekers can apply to open positions with the information uploaded in their ZipRecruiter profile, including any résumés and CVs, without having to repeatedly fill out the same information. For some job posts, job seekers also have the option to apply with one click, further speeding up the application process.
Job seekers can also take advantage of ZipRecruiter’s personal recruitment assistant, “Phil.” A personification of ZipRecruiter’s AI technology, Phil assists job seekers during the hiring process by automatically emailing candidates job alerts, optimizing profiles by adding skills based on their résumés, and even pitching top job seekers directly to employers.
ZipRecruiter’s main appeal to job seekers is its time-saving capabilities, allowing candidates to apply for several jobs with minimal effort. ZipRecruiter’s AI also provides job seekers with a steady supply of open opportunities fitting their skill sets, so they do not have to search for opportunities themselves. As a result, job seekers needing to find a new position fast have a better chance using ZipRecruiter, as it is actively working to find roles, even when they are not using the platform.
In contrast to ZipRecruiter, Indeed’s approach to the applicant experience is slightly more nuanced. For example, Indeed does not have an AI pitching job seeker profiles to employers. Moreover, as a job aggregator website, the application process on Indeed can be lengthy for job seekers, as Indeed may direct them to apply on company websites. Instead, because Indeed has been a staple online job board since 2004, it relies on its brand recognition to pull in job seekers and recruiters alike.
Since it is harder for job seekers to apply to many jobs simultaneously, Indeed focuses on providing insights to candidates, so their applications are more intentional. For example, unlike ZipRecruiter, job seekers can see how many days since employers posted a job on each quick summary they see of a job on their homepage, without having to click and scroll through the entire ad. Job seekers can then quickly screen out stale job posts and focus on applying to jobs where there is a greater chance that employers will see their applications.
Like its sister company, Glassdoor, Indeed provides job seekers access to company pages to read company reviews, view open positions, and compare salaries and benefits. Therefore, even if job seekers have to spend more time searching for opportunities on Indeed, the platform allows them to make informed decisions during their job search instead of blindly applying to as many positions as possible.
It’s a tie. Here’s why: Because both platforms are free for job seekers, they are likely to use both during their search. Moreover, each offers beneficial services to job seekers—from ZipRecruiter’s AI to improve efficiency to Indeed’s company database for insight into a business’s culture. If you can, you should consider utilizing both platforms to source the most complete candidate pool.
Reporting
Unless integrated with an ATS, both ZipRecruiter and Indeed offer little in the way of reporting analytics. However, through each platform’s respective recruiting pages, you can gain fundamental insights into the performance of your job postings, such as how long a job post has been active and the number of candidates who applied.
Here’s a quick overview of the metrics available in each platform:
Job Market Trends
No
Yes
Job Performance Pages
Yes
Yes
Job Post Impressions
No
Yes
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
No
Yes
Number of Applicants
Yes
Yes
Spending per Job
N/A
Yes
Despite its price, ZipRecruiter’s reporting capabilities are sparse. Unless investing in a market analysis with specialists in ZipRecruiter’s enterprise solution, smaller businesses can access a basic report showing job location, date posted, TrafficBoost credits used, number of applicants, and conversion percentage.
ZipRecruiter provides a glimpse of salary ranges for similar positions based on the job and location when initially posting a job ad. Beyond that, you may need to integrate with an ATS solution to produce more meaningful metrics on talent acquisition, such as average time to fill, time to hire, or cost per hire.
Smaller companies without an ATS needing actionable insight into their recruitment efforts may have to resort to manual performance tracking methods. ZipRecruiter may not be the answer for companies requiring specific metrics to outperform their competition through a strategic hiring campaign without a large-scale budget.
You can access Indeed’s Hiring Insights as long as you have a free account with Indeed. Hiring Insights gives you a macro-view of how a particular job is doing across the U.S. to stay ahead of the competition. For example, you can review data such as an insights map to compare talent pools, trendlines, competition scores, average salaries, and top search terms.
For more granular insights, you can use Indeed Analytics to gauge the performance of posted job ads. Compared to ZipRecruiter’s job performance page, Indeed’s analytics are considerably more thorough. In addition to location and number of candidates, you can see data such as impressions, click-through rates, and cost per click. You can then easily weigh the cost of your hiring efforts against the value of the applicants collected and adjust hiring tactics accordingly.
Indeed. Here’s why: With free access to job market trend reports, Indeed makes it easy for you to research and create targeted hiring campaigns before posting a job ad. Unlike ZipRecruiter, Indeed posts job ads in areas that will make the most impact without spending time and money promoting them elsewhere.
Indeed vs ZipRecruiter: Ready to choose?
Is ZipRecruiter better than Indeed? That depends. Indeed and ZipRecruiter are two of the most prominent online job board players. Because both platforms are free to use by job seekers, they attract substantial talent pools. As a result, you can use both sites to collect the most diverse candidate pool. Of course, whichever platform you start with depends on what is most valuable to your recruitment efforts: ZipRecruiter for efficiency or Indeed for value.
While ZipRecruiter and Indeed are great ways to advertise your open job positions, their candidate management and reporting capabilities are rather simplistic. For more advanced features, check out our Applicant Tracking System Software Guide to browse solutions to enhance your hiring processes.
