Indeed Launches Job Spotter to Bring Crowdsourcing Power to Local Jobs

Indeed, the world’s number one job site, today announced the launch of Job Spotter, the first mobile app designed to bring offline local job postings online, and help businesses of all sizes increase visibility of their local opportunities with the power of crowdsourcing.

Although businesses can post jobs on Indeed for free, a majority of jobs around the world can not be found online. In many countries, a large percentage of open positions can only be discovered if job seekers walk past a “Help Wanted” or “We’re Hiring” sign. Indeed estimates that, in the U.S. alone, millions of jobs are only advertised in storefront windows.

By downloading the Job Spotter app, anyone can snap pictures of local “Help Wanted” signs and upload them to Indeed. Job seekers then gain access to openings they might only have known about had they been walking past a store. So far, 44,000 users have downloaded Job Spotter and uploaded jobs offered by 5,000 employers in 11,000 cities and towns around the U.S.

For businesses, whether small and independently owned or national chains, Job Spotter amplifies their job advertising, increasing their pool of local candidates for locally based positions. Job Spotter jobs uploaded to Indeed are currently getting an average of 800,000 clicks every week from job seekers.

“Job Spotter is really a completely new interactive model that harnesses the power of the smartphones we all have in our pockets to help more job seekers find jobs,” said Donald Wysocki, senior product director at Indeed. “Lots of businesses need local job applicants, but do not have the time or resources to advertise online or sift through piles of resumes. They need job seekers to show up in person and getting the word out usually comes down to simply putting a sign in the window. We created Job Spotter to get these hard-to-find jobs out of the storefront window and make them searchable online. Job seekers will no longer have to do an online job search and then pound the pavement or drive around looking for ‘Help Wanted’ signs as well.”

Job Spotter was initially conceived as a project out of Indeed University, Indeed’s internal training program in data driven product design for software engineers that also functions as a new product incubator.

Currently available on Google Play in the U.S. and Australia, an iOS version is also in the works. Job Spotter users who submit photos of hiring signs and storefronts earn points toward gift cards with no limit on the number of local job ads they may submit.

To find Job Spotter jobs in your area, simply type “Help Wanted” into Indeed job search.

For more information, and to download the Job Spotter app, please visit: http://blog.indeed.com/2016/07/07/indeed-job-spotter-app-helps-small-businesses/