Indeed: A Conscious Decoupling
Welcome to November, Job Board Doctor friends! As we round into the holiday season, I’m sure many of you are strategizing, planning, and (hopefully) implementing your roadmaps for a successful 2026. Today, I’ve got one twisty, turn-y tale for you — and friends, it stars our industry’s Big Bad Wolf: Indeed.
Following last week’s massive layoff announcements, the full reporting of the Mag 7, and this week’s news U.S. layoffs are at a two-decade high, I was closely watching Recruit Holdings, the parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor, earnings report.
And, as ever, the story did not disappoint.
But before we huff and puff our way to that particular chapter, we need to explore a couple of winding side paths in this dark forest of job tech.
Memo: Senior Devs No Longer Mentoring Junior Devs
Nov 3, 2025 — Our story begins not in a glass tower, but in the online village square known as Reddit, specifically the ExperiencedDevs thread which averages 256,000 weekly visitors and 6,300 weekly contributions.
On November 3rd, 2025, a Redditor reported that a memo sent to Indeed staff removed the expectation for senior developers to mentor lower-level or junior developers.
While I haven’t independently reviewed the memo, other Redditors claiming to be Indeed employees chimed in — some even quoting the memo directly:
“We acknowledge [after years of layoffs and reorgs] that some teams have no juniors to mentor. Because of this, mentorship is no longer a rubric requirement for seniors and an acceptable substitute is using AI agents to increase output.”
Another employee added:
“Dude it’s so bleak lol… they completely cornered the job board market and really want to take over recruiting, but haven’t been able to in several years of trying, so now everything is just getting gutted… they just want to figure out what the bare minimum number of employees is to keep the lights on.”
And yet another:
“My new rubric as a SWE also replaced ‘working through others to achieve goals’ with ‘working through AI’ lol. They would really rather we work with AI than our own teammates.”
There’s plenty more in this thread, including chatter about using an internal AI tool to write performance reviews, that may be worth your Friday afternoon read.
Additional Layoff or Layoffs?
Earlier this year, we reported that Indeed laid off roughly 1,300 employees just before former CEO Chris Hyams departed.
Now, we’ve learned that there’s been at least one additional round of cuts. Business Insider confirmed these layoffs this week, though Indeed declined further details.
“To better align our team structure with business priorities, we’ve reorganized several functions and made the difficult decision to eliminate a very small number of roles,” Indeed told Business Insider.
Multiple LinkedIn posts from former employees describe a series of smaller layoffs since the summer RIF.
Former employees described it as a “quiet thinning of the ranks”:
George Finklang’s post from 2 weeks ago.
A “small number,” they say — but the number doesn’t feel so small when it includes you.
FYI-Indeed’s headcount now stands at 11,000. Pretty damn big for a job search site.
The HR Tech Segment: Q2 and 1H
On November 6, 2025, Recruit Holdings reported Q2 FY25 earnings. And friends, the numbers tell their own bedtime story.
First, the headline:
“Revised FY2025 full-year HR Technology U.S. revenue outlook revised upward to +5.6% YoY from +0.3%… Europe & Others: +17.6% YoY from +8.1%.”
That’s quite a rebound on paper. But dig deeper and the shadows lengthen.
Segment revenue was up +4.5% YoY, with EBITDA+S margin expanding to 37.9%, largely driven by “continued monetization development” – code for charging more, doing more with less, and trimming the workforce.
Recruit confirmed as much:
“…margin expansion… driven by upward revisions of revenue and progress in efficiency improvements, including the workforce reduction implemented in July.”
Enter the New Shiny KPI: ARPJ
A new acronym has entered our tale: ARPJ — Average Revenue per Posted Job.
Average Revenue per Posted Job is a new to Indeed key performance indicator (KPI) announced during the analyst call this week.
Great! Let’s hear it, Indeed? What is the org’s ARPJ??
What we did learn: ARPJ is up 15% in Q2 and 13% in 1H.
“Currently, paid job ads remain just under one-quarter of the total number of U.S. job postings on Indeed. As we increase this penetration and as more business clients adopt our subscription services and AI products, the U.S. ARPJ will rise and accelerate…”
So where does that leave us?
- If ARPJ is high (unlikely, given it includes unpaid postings), upward pricing pressure is imminent.
- If it’s low, the percent growth looks impressive to investors while allowing Indeed to hide how aggressively pricing is being pushed.
At the end of the day, that kind of growth is unsustainable. Indeed is pushing pricing far faster than the rate of inflation, and this new KPI tells us exactly where the wolf’s appetite is headed next: toward your wallet share.
A Conscious “Decoupling”
In the spirit of Gwyneth and Chris, Indeed has chosen a “conscious decoupling” of revenue and job postings.
“From the beginning of FY2024… HR Tech U.S. revenue has decoupled from the declining trend in job postings… We will report the U.S. ARPJ growth rate as a new KPI.”
Translation: Indeed doesn’t want to be just a job board anymore. (duh.)
And when you’re a mature — perhaps declining — business, there are only a few ways to keep your investors happy.
- Expand the total addressable market (TAM)
- Raise prices
- Cut headcount
Why not all three at once?
And let’s not forget stock buybacks. Recruit Holdings nearly tripled its owned shares from 36.4M in March to 89.8M by September 30. The buyback program continues through year-end.
Note: Indeed quoted source material can be reviewed in the company’s quarterly earnings release.
The Moral of the Story
So here we are:
- No more mentoring (required).
- Undisclosed layoffs.
- A shiny new metric to mask old tricks.
- And a wolf still prowling, still hungry….and perhaps a bit desperate.
Indeed’s story this week is less fairytale, more fable; a lesson in what happens when efficiency eats community and monetization outpaces mission.
Next week, we’ll wander deeper into the woods with Indeed Connect and take a look at where their product roadmap leads from here.
Until then, keep your teams close, your candidates closer and your eyes wide open.
Until Next Time,
Julie “The Doc” Sowash
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