These are the tasks Indeed’s new CEO says HR leaders should hand over to AI

Kristin StollerBy Kristin StollerEditorial Director, Fortune Live Media
Kristin StollerEditorial Director, Fortune Live Media

Kristin Stoller is an editorial director at Fortune focused on expanding Fortune's C-suite communities.

A portrait of Hisayuki Idekoba, president and CEO of Recruit Holdings Co. and CEO of Indeed, in Tokyo, Japan.
In his first three months back as CEO of Indeed, Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba has launched new AI agents to automate hiring for both companies and job seekers.
Shoko Takayasu/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Just three months after returning to the top job, Indeed CEO Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba says he’s regularly working 15-hour days because he’s “obsessed with innovating the HR industry.” 

And he feels the call urgently: Indeed economists recently found that 61% of the skills listed in job postings within the HR sector have the potential to be at least partially transformed by generative AIwell above the average of 44% of the skills listed in an average U.S. job posting.

Idekoba, who is also the CEO of Indeed parent company Recruit Holdings, said he wants to help HR leaders develop the parts of their job that are uniquely human. “There are things human beings are way more effective at,” he said. “But as we dig deeper into the hiring process, there are things human beings should not spend time on, like arranging the times for interviews or checking the details of resumes or asking, ‘Hey, are you open to do the night shift?’”

On Wednesday, Indeed announced two new AI-powered hiring products for both job seekers and employers: Career Scout and Talent Scout. While job seekers can use Career Scout for help with tailoring resumes and preparing for interviews, Talent Scout is a tool to help HR leaders to operate more efficiently, Idekoba said.

In addition to delivering shortlists of the most-qualified candidates, Talent Scout will advise HR professionals on ways they can improve their candidate pool by increasing salaries, widening the location parameters or relaxing other requirements, such as years of experience required. This, he said, will help humans do what they do best: strategize. 

With AI agents helping people on both sides of the hiring equation, I asked Idekoba whether he sees a world in which agents operating on behalf of both employers and job seekers will eventually be able to negotiate salaries and job titles without human interaction. 

He laughed. “That would be fantastic. But the reality is, I really believe there are things human beings can do way better.”

Kristin Stoller
Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media
kristin.stoller@fortune.com

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