World renowned job-post engines Indeed and Glassdoor are set on a downsizing spree. The companies, in result of an official merger, have decided to lay-off around 1300 employees, amounting to 6% of their HR workforce. Obviously, the irony is quite astonishing, the platforms supposed to assist the job seekers in their quest, are cutting their own staff off. It’s quite interesting to note that the word “improved efficiency” is always the reason for any such layoffs in this world of pragmatic corporations.
The major chunk of these lay-offs consists of development, growth, and research teams. This consolidation between the two giant Job-seeking platforms is a strategic move. As, Indeed focuses on the job listings, Glassdoor is more trusted with finding and comparing company insights and salary data. Under one unified AI-powered platform, both sites envision performing better, giving two mostly searched activities by job seekers on the same platform.
More significantly, it’s not only the tier two, tier three employees, but there happened to be key leadership changes within the big walled offices as well as the Glassdoor’s CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong and Indeed’s Chief People Officer LaFawn Davis, both are bidding farewell to the companies in October and September respectively. Such C-suite level reshuffling doesn’t really tell “Incremental Changes” rather it means that a fundamental rebirth of the business is in order.
The CEO of both of the companies’ parent company, Recruit Holdings, commenting on this move, said, “AI is changing the world, and we must adapt by ensuring our product delivers truly great experiences for job seekers and employers.”
Such bold changes and head-on statements do tell that the Recruit Holding is not taking AI features on a test drive, they’re redefining the entire organization around it, considering AI as an existential compulsion.
Technically, there’s a lot in the HR department that AI can streamline, from resume parsing to candidate matching and ATS compatibility to narrowing down job search, this transition towards AI could really bring about a new benchmark in terms of speed and accuracy in the recruitment process.
Yet, it’s a “wait and watch” for the question, does AI really bring a meaningful and concrete improvement in the nerve testing and notoriously frustrating process of “The Pursuit of Happiness” or is it just another replacement of humans with machines without an actual user benefit.
