Careerbuilder vs. Indeed: Which Site Helps You Find Job Seekers More Efficiently?
CareerBuilder and Indeed are two of the top job boards people search for new job opportunities, which makes them two of the best places for employers to fill job openings.
One board dwarfs the other, yet you’re likely to find a higher concentration of top tier talent on the smaller board. If only it were as simple as quality vs. quantity.
In comparing CareerBuilder and Indeed, you’ll find that the playing field is more level between these job boards than their traffic numbers and reach may indicate at first.
Before you choose a winner and a loser, see how these two job posting sites stack up against one another.
What is CareerBuilder?
CareerBuilder is a job posting site that leverages a mix of custom tools, analytics, third-party software integration and flexible payment options to help employers find qualified candidates.
The site offers employers access to over 80 million resumes and social media profiles. Like ZipRecruiter, it can share job postings with other job boards around the internet (to a lower extent).
There are hiring solutions for companies of all sizes, from small businesses up to enterprise organizations. You can choose one of its tiered, full-service packages or build your own by picking the number of job ads and monthly resume searches you want.
Helpful solutions, like its candidate-screening service, “Source and Screen,” can enhance your recruitment campaign with candidate screening, job-post promotion, scheduling and branding.
Smaller HR departments might find Source and Screen to be the most impactful add-ons offered by CareerBuilder. The program outsources branding, job post promotion, candidate sourcing and screening duties to a partner service.
Pros:
CareerBuilder offers a large database of resumes, access to linked social profiles, support for a host of third-party applicant tracking systems, automated emails and instrumental add-ons like candidate sourcing.
Cons:
It limits the number of resumes you can view monthly, while sites like ZipRecruiter offer unlimited views to make it easier to find the best candidates.
Reach:
CareerBuilder.com sees about 8.5 million U.S. users monthly and provides access to about 80 million candidate resumes.
What is Indeed?
Indeed is one of the most popular job posting sites around, and it has the monthly web traffic to back up that assertion.
Indeed offers employers free job postings. You don’t begin paying for them until people click on your job posting, which explains the sheer number of users the site attracts, as well as the large number of unskilled positions found on the site.
You can set your own price caps to keep your recruitment campaign on budget. And you can also pay a little more for sponsored job ads to make your listing more visible, which you may need to do to avoid being lost in a sea of other job openings.
Business pages provide another way for your organization and its job openings to stand out.
Its core platform, the Indeed Hiring Platform, includes tools that help you keep track of candidates, schedule interviews and even host video interviews. You can easily invite others in your organization to join the platform, assign roles and share contacts.
Indeed also has a well-rounded selection of screening tools, with automated written or video prompts, so you can spend more time reviewing qualified candidates and less time trying to figure out if they’re at least capable of performing the job you need to fill.
Pros:
Indeed attracts a lot of job seekers. It offers solutions for every step of the recruitment process, along with robust support for third-party tracking solutions.
Its screening tools and job-description templates can make recruiting a lot more efficient for companies with smaller HR teams and those who hire in bunches.
Cons:
You may have to sift through a lot more unqualified candidates due to the sheer volume the site sees. Its native applicant tracking system may not be as well-rounded as other job sites.
Reach:
Indeed sees roughly 600 million users monthly, according to reports. Its database offers access to more than 200 million resumes.
Feature Comparison: CareerBuilder vs. Indeed
| Features | CareerBuilder | Indeed |
| Free Job Ads | No | Yes |
| Screening Tools | No | Yes |
| Third-Party ATS Support | Yes | Yes |
| AI Matching | Yes | Yes |
| Video Interview Tools | No | Yes |
| Recruitment Outsourcing | Add-on | No |
| Sponsored Posts | Yes | Yes |
| Company Pages | Yes | Add-on |
| Resume Database Size | 80 million | 200 million |
Pricing: How Much Each Will Cost You
Each site’s job-post pricing models differ significantly, but you can still get an idea of how their subscription services compare when you compare them head-to-head.
Indeed:
- Free to post jobs: Your job posting is free until users click on your ad.
- Standard resume search: $100 monthly; $960 annually. Includes unlimited search, credit when candidates respond.
- Professional resume search: $250 monthly; $2,400 annually. Includes unlimited search, credits for responses, analytics and the ability to contact more than one candidate at a time.
CareerBuilder:
- Lite: Includes one job ad, 500 resume database searches, alerts and custom candidate lists.
- Standard: Includes three job postings, 500 resume searches, alerts and custom candidate lists.
- Pro: Includes five job postings, 500 searches, alerts and custom candidate lists.
- Build Your Own: Starts with one job posting, resume searches, alerts and candidate lists.
FAQs
In case you still have more question marks about how Indeed and CareerBuilder compare, we pulled a few of the top questions about these two job sites from around the web.
Why is Indeed so bad?
It’s one of the most popular job boards around for good reasons, lots of them. It offers more of everything — more to like and more not to like.
Its sponsored job postings, robust third-party support, screening solutions and remote interview tools attract lots of highly skilled job applicants – such as those with a college education or advanced certifications.
Its job-description templates and low-cost options for posting jobs draw a lot of low-level positions and many of the negative opinions about the site.
Is CareerBuilder good?
Like Indeed, there’s a lot to like and dislike about CareerBuilder. It’s considerably smaller than sites like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter and Indeed.
However, CareerBuilder has more of a boutique feel with bespoke recruitment solutions and lots of add-ons, such as outsourced screening solutions and AI-based talent discovery tools.
When to choose Indeed?
Indeed is a solid option for recruitment campaigns of all sizes. It offers more flexible payment plans than CareerBuilder, and it’s just as well-rounded in the features department. However, a major complaint about Indeed is its lower concentration of highly-skilled job seekers.
Consider a site like ZipRecruiter for a higher concentration of advanced talent or to reach potential candidates on more than just one job board.
When to choose CareerBuilder?
This job posting site may make more efficient use of your recruitment dollars if you’re recruiting multiple, highly-skilled job seekers. However, Indeed offers a much deeper pool of job seekers in general.
Decision Time
Want to comb through a conga line of candidates of all skill levels, or put together your shortlist as efficiently as you can? That’s the 10,000-foot-view difference between Indeed and CareerBuilder, respectively.
With Indeed, small and midsize businesses have more flexibility to right-size their recruitment campaigns. But they may find that CareerBuilder has the add-on services and tools that make all the difference.
Neither site is perfect, however.
One of the biggest downsides to both sites is that they both focus on attracting talent rather than reaching job seekers on job boards all across the web — that’s critical as remote work matures into something that’s here to stay.
