Indeed's Changes Sting Small Businesses --- Job-search site's switch to pay-per- application model led to surprise charges

"The largest job-search site has run afoul of the small-business community.

Indeed.com began changing how it charged employers for connecting them with job seekers, pitching the shift as better for small businesses because they could choose which applications to review and pay only for the ones they liked. Instead it created confusion and unexpected costs for many business owners, and now Indeed is trying to minimize the fallout.

Bonanno Concepts, a Denver-based restaurant group, said it cut spending on Indeed by roughly 90%, largely because of the new pricing strategy. 

One pain point: Indeed gives employers 72 hours to reject applications they don't like -- or incur a fee for each application. For some employers, those charges have added up to hundreds or thousands of dollars.

"I don't have someone who is checking that inbox seven days a week," said Jennifer Frye-Brunner, who leads the two-person human-resources team at Bonanno, which has nine restaurants and about 250 employees. A chef or general manager who posts a job Friday morning may not have time to review applications until the following Tuesday, she said. 

"It's really terrible if you need one line cook and get 500 applicants overnight."

Indeed formally rolled out the new approach in October, when the company said it planned to shift all small businesses to the new pricing over time and relegated the option to choose its longstanding pay-per-click pricing option to the fine print. After customers complained, the company changed course, and next month it will begin a test of the new and old models side by side instead of making pay-per-application the default choice.

The company said the new model is part of an effort to help employers hire quality candidates more quickly, while providing job seekers with more immediate feedback. A related offering, aimed at larger employers, will charge companies for each started application.

Raj Mukherjee, an executive vice president and general manager at Indeed, acknowledged the company made missteps in the rollout and said Indeed is working out the kinks. "This is still a product in evolution," he said. "We are taking feedback from customers."

Mr. Mukherjee said the new approach provides value to small-business owners because they aren't charged for applications they reject and can set minimum requirements for the applications they receive. 

He said the company has been offering refunds and credits to employers who complained on a case-by-case basis.

The changes come as hiring has slowed and large companies such as Meta Platforms Inc., Walt Disney Co. and McDonald's Corp. are laying off employees. In March, Indeed, a unit of Recruit Holdings Co., said it expects to lay off about 2,200 employees, or 15% of its workforce, citing a decline in job openings that it expects will last for two to three years.

Competitors also are rethinking their strategies. LinkedIn this year raised the fees it charges recruiters for subscriptions. A LinkedIn spokeswoman said the company periodically adjusts pricing for improvements made to its products. "We built new features to help hirers find skilled candidates faster and improve talent representation," the spokeswoman said.

Indeed has coupled the new pricing model with a service that lets small businesses set "deal breaker" questions to winnow the pool of potential candidates. Yoon Choi, co-owner of Infinia Dental Inc., a maker of dental prosthetics in Germantown, Md., said the new feature saves him time and money. The 72-hour window for rejecting candidates helps limit costs, he added.

Nearly 40% of small-business hiring managers say postings on Indeed and other major job boards are a key source of new hires, according to market-research firm IDC.

Buckeye Innovation, a software engineering and design firm in New Albany, Ohio, said it was hit by more than $1,000 in credit-card charges when an employee missed the fine print explaining Indeed made pay-per-application the default option. Indeed refunded nearly half of the charges after Buckeye complained, said Buckeye President Brad Griffith. He continues to use Indeed but said he would no longer share his credit-card information.

The Better Business Bureau said it received 105 complaints about Indeed between Jan. 1 and April 10 this year, compared with 44 for the same period last year. Many complaints came from small-business owners. A doctor's office said it was charged roughly $2,500 for a month and a week of listings. Another small business was charged $8,000. "This morning after a weekend away, I woke up to a $5,000 bill!" a third small-business owner said.

Mr. Mukherjee said in addition to offering refunds and credits, the company added a feature that allows employers using the pay-per-application model to set a limit on how much they want to spend. In February, Indeed capped charges at $1,000 per job posting for employers who don't set their own limit.

Some employers say another source of confusion is the per-application charges, which can range from less than $10 to $95 or more.

Mary Jo Finley, HR and recruitment lead for Partner Forces, a government contractor, said she was charged $30 per applicant for a posting for a cybersecurity consultant and $77 per application for a senior analyst. The position with the lower per-applicant charge required fewer years of experience but called for an additional certification and carried a slightly higher salary range.

Indeed says it uses dynamic pricing to set per-applicant charges, weighing job title, location, experience, demand and other factors. Requiring more years of experience typically reduces the number of job seekers, resulting in a higher per-application cost, Mr. Mukherjee said. Roles in healthcare and technology tend to be the most costly, the company said.

Matt Matone, co-founder of Matone Counseling & Testing in Charlotte, N.C., said he likes the idea of paying per application, but is frustrated by the cost because of the high number of no-shows.

Paying $95 per application for a Ph.D. psychologist is particularly painful because the number of people who show up for interviews and are hired is so low, said Mr. Matone, whose most recent Indeed bill totaled $600.

Mr. Mukherjee said Indeed doesn't guarantee that candidates will show up for an interview regardless of the pricing model customers choose. He said he reviews about 10 customer complaints each morning to get a better feel for pain points and other concerns. "We have not fixed everything," he said.

Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of AIM Group, a recruiting-marketplace consultant, said Indeed's changes are a step in the right direction, but the way they were implemented wasn't ideal. He said he gives the company credit for changing course. "They got hammered and they took that to heart," he said." [1]

1. Indeed's Changes Sting Small Businesses --- Job-search site's switch to pay-per- application model led to surprise charges
Simon, Ruth.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 01 May 2023: B.6.

Kauno diena pavadino Broilerį pliurpalium

Ministras Gabrielius Landsbergis tik pasidalino svajonėmis dėl per Klaipėdos uostą perkrauto milijono tonų grūdų. Kaip paprastam žmogui, taip ir valdžios „pliurpalių“ svajonėms įgyvendinti reikia pinigų.

Skaityti daugiau: https://klaipeda.diena.lt/naujienos/klaipeda/miesto-pulsas/pliurpimas-ar-pinigais-pagrista-tranzito-realybe-1122858

  "Ministras Gabrielius Landsbergis tik pasidalino svajonėmis dėl per Klaipėdos uostą perkrauto milijono tonų grūdų. Kaip paprastam žmogui, taip ir valdžios „pliurpalių“ svajonėms įgyvendinti reikia pinigų."

Mes prarandame protingus žmones: dauguma JAV profesorių ruošiami keliuose elitiniuose universitetuose

   "Remiantis tyrimu, JAV universitetai samdo didžiąją dalį savo dėstytojų iš tų pačių elitinių institucijų. 

 

Išvados rodo, kad priimant sprendimus dėl įdarbinimo prestižas yra pervertinamas ir kad akademiniai mokslininkai turi mažai galimybių gauti darbą institucijose, kurios laikomos elitiškesnėmis nei tos, kuriose jie buvo mokomi.

 

     Konkrečiai, tyrimas, paskelbtas „Nature“ rugsėjo 21 d., rodo, kad tik 20 % Jungtinių Valstijų mokslų daktaro laipsnį suteikiančių institucijų 2011–2020 m. į institucijas visoje šalyje aprūpino 80 % dėstytojų. 

 

Istoriškai juodaodžių kolegijos ir universitetai (HBCU) ar ispanų kalbas aptarnaujančios institucijos (HSI) nebuvo tarp tų 20%, sako Hunteris Wapmanas, Kolorado Boulder universiteto (CU Boulder) kompiuterių mokslininkas ir šio straipsnio bendraautoris. 

 

Vienas iš aštuonių JAV apmokytų dėstytojų daktaro laipsnį įgijo tik penkiuose elitiniuose universitetuose: Kalifornijos universitete Berklyje; Harvardo universitete Kembridže, Masačusetso valstijoje; Mičigano universitetas Ann Arbor mieste; Stanfordo universitetas Kalifornijoje; ir Viskonsino universitetas – Madisonas.

 

     „Tai nenuostabu, bet gąsdina“ matyti šiuos duomenis, sako Leslie Gonzales, socialinis mokslininkas, studijuojantis aukštąjį mokslą Mičigano valstijos universitete Rytų Lansinge. „Yra tiek daug puikaus darbo ir puikių mokslininkų mokymų, kurie vyksta už šios mažos institucijų dalies, įskaitant HBCU ir HSI, ir į tai nepaisoma, sako ji.

 

     Šį elitizmo vaizdą sustiprina praėjusį mėnesį Nature Human Behaviour paskelbtas tyrimas, parodantis, kad beveik 25 % JAV fakulteto narių bent vienas iš tėvų turi daktaro laipsnį (bendrojoje populiacijoje mažiau nei 1 % žmonių vienas iš tėvų, turintis daktaro laipsnį). 

 

Tai svarbu, nes tėvai, turintys aukštąjį išsilavinimą, paprastai turi aukštesnį socialinį ir ekonominį statusą, nei neturintys tokio išsilavinimo, todėl aukštesnės klasės šeimos labai prisideda prie doktorantūros kūrimo, sako Aaronas Clausetas, CU Boulder kompiuterių mokslininkas ir abiejų straipsnių bendraautorius.

 

     Kartu studijos vaizduoja akademinę sistemą, kurioje dauguma fakulteto narių yra mokomi keliuose universitetuose, o akademiniai mokslininkai paprastai kilę iš šeimų, turinčių panašų išsilavinimą, sukurdami vienodumo ciklą. „Ar sistema yra meritokratija? klausia Danielis Larremore'as, CU Boulder skaičiavimo mokslininkas, kuris yra abiejų straipsnių bendraautorius. „Atliekant tarpusavio peržiūrą, ne; idėjų sklaidoje – ne; o dėstytojų samdymo atveju - tikrai ne.

 

     Tobulumo matavimas

 

     „Nature Paper“ duomenų rinkinys apėmė dėstytojų, dirbančių doktorantūros studijas teikiančiose institucijose Jungtinėse Amerikos Valstijose 2011–2020 m., narius, iš viso 295 089 žmones daugiau, nei 350, institucijų. Duomenys buvo gauti iš Akademinės analizės tyrimų centro, įsikūrusio Šarlotėje, Šiaurės Karolinoje, kuris suteikė Larremore'ui ir komandai prieigą prie informacijos. Larremore'as, Wapmanas ir jų kolegos suskirstė fakulteto narius iš duomenų rinkinio į 107 sritis, tokias, kaip ekologija ir chemija.

 

     Remiantis analize, priklausomai nuo srities, tik 5–23% dėstytojų dirbo prestižiškesnėje institucijoje nei ta, kurioje įgijo daktaro laipsnį. Sritys, turinčios mažiausiai „mobilumo aukštyn“, apėmė klasiką ir ekonomiką, o tos, kuriose daugiausiai – gyvūnų mokslas ir farmakologija.

 

     Panašu, kad įdarbinimo komitetai naudoja prestižą, kaip tobulumo pakaitalą, sako Kimberly Griffin, Merilendo universiteto College Park Edukologijos koledžo dekanė. Tačiau „prestižas“ nebūtinai reiškia „geresnę kvalifikaciją“, o prestižinės magistrantūros studijų programos dažnai priima studentus pagal standartizuotus testų balus, rekomendacinius laiškus ir jų bakalauro laipsnio žinomumą. Visa tai, kaip rodo tyrimai, gali pakenkti spalvotiems studentams, sako Griffin, kuris taip pat yra žurnalo „Journal of Diversity in Higher Education“ redaktorė.

 

     „Pripažinimas, kad prestižas yra geras meistriškumo matas, reiškia, kad nenagrinėjame istorijos, kaip viskas tapo prestižiniu“, – sako Gonzalesas. Elitinių JAV universitetų steigimas „susipynęs su atskirtimi“, priduria ji. Pavyzdžiui, daugelis institucijų yra atėmusios žemę iš čiabuvių grupių arba iš pradžių gaudavo turtus iš pavergtų juodaodžių žmonių arba jų darbu rėmė savo infrastruktūrą.

 

     Mokymasis iš duomenų

 

     Nature dokumente nustatyta, kad naujų įdarbintų moterų dalis nuo 2011 m. išliko nepakitusi 100 iš 107 analizuotų sričių, o iš tikrųjų sumažėjo likusiose 7 srityse. Bendras moterų procentas padidėjo trimis ketvirtadaliais tų sričių, tačiau autoriai tai sieja su didele vyrų dalimi tarp dėstytojų, sulaukusių pensinio amžiaus. Šios tendencijos rodo, kad pastangos įdarbinti daugiau moterų akademinėje bendruomenėje nebuvo vaisingos, bent jau nuo 2011 m., sako Larremore'as.

 

     Jis pastebi du lyčių duomenų rinkinio apribojimus: komanda dažniausiai naudojo vardus – lyčių kultūros asociacijas, kad fakulteto narius skirstytų į vyrus ar moteris, o tai nebūtinai yra patikima; ir nebuvo ne dvejetainės lyties kategorijos.

 

     „Nature Human Behavior“ tyrime buvo panaudota internetinė apklausa, skirta surinkti duomenis iš 7 024 dėstytojų Jungtinėse Valstijose. Clauset nustebino tai, kiek žmonių susisiekė su komanda dėl straipsnio nuo jo paskelbimo. „Nemanau, kad supratome, kaip tai atsilieps žmonėms jų išgyventose patirtyse“, – sako jis. Daugelis žmonių, kurie yra „pirmosios kartos“ magistrantai iš šeimų, neturinčių aukštojo mokslo laipsnių, sakė, kad jaučiasi atskirti nuo savo bendraamžių, kurie turėjo daugiau pranašumų, priduria jis.

 

     Yra būdų, kaip akademinė bendruomenė gali sumenkinti prestižą ir sumažinti nelygybę. Pirmasis, pagrindinis žingsnis yra suabejoti prestižu ir iš kur jis kilęs, sako Gonzalesas. Ji pataria samdymo komitetams išvardyti visas vietas, kuriose jie planuoja skelbti pareigas, įskaitant asmeninius ryšius; išnagrinėti institucinę sąrašo įvairovę; ir pridėti HBCU, HSI ir regionines institucijas, jei jos dar neįtrauktos.

 

     Nevienodos galimybės gauti darbą fakultete, atsižvelgiant į lytį, rasę ir socialinę bei ekonominę padėtį, turi pasekmių. „Yra daugybė literatūros, kurioje teigiama, kad tai, kas yra mokslo bendruomenėje, turi įtakos užduodamiems tyrimo klausimams“, - sako Clauset.

 

 „Nebūdami tokie įvairūs, kokie galėtume būti, kiek galėtume įtraukti, prarandame protingus žmones, kurie galėtų pakeisti pasaulį į gerąją pusę“ [1]

 

Nenuostabu, kad liko daugiausia kvailiai. 

 

1. Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities. Anna Nowogrodzki, Nature 609, 887 (2022)

We are losing smart people: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

"One in eight tenure-track professors at US institutions got their PhDs from just five elite US universities, according to a study.Credit: Paul Marotta/Getty

US universities hire most of their tenure-track faculty members from the same handful of elite institutions, according to a study¹. The finding suggests that prestige is overvalued in hiring decisions and that academic researchers have little opportunity to obtain jobs at institutions considered more elite than the ones at which they were trained.

Specifically, the study, published in Nature on 21 September, shows that just 20% of PhD-granting institutions in the United States supplied 80% of tenure-track faculty members to institutions across the country between 2011 and 2020 (see ‘Hiring bias’). No historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) or Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) were among that 20%, says Hunter Wapman, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) and a co-author of the paper. One in eight US-trained tenure-track faculty members got their PhDs from just five elite universities: the University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Stanford University in California; and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“It’s not surprising, but it is jarring” to see these data, says Leslie Gonzales, a social scientist who studies higher education at Michigan State University in East Lansing. “There’s so much brilliant work and training of brilliant scholars that’s happening outside of this tiny sliver” of institutions, including at HBCUs and HSIs — and it’s being overlooked, she says.

 

Source: Ref 1.

This picture of elitism is bolstered by a study published last month in Nature Human Behaviour², showing that almost 25% of faculty members in the United States have at least one parent with a PhD (in the general population, less than 1% of people have a parent with a PhD). That’s significant because parents with advanced degrees tend to have higher socio-economic status than do those without such education, so upper-class families are contributing heavily to the PhD pipeline, says Aaron Clauset, a computer scientist at CU Boulder and co-author of both papers.

Together, the studies portray an academic system in which most faculty members are trained at a few universities, and academic researchers generally come from families with similar backgrounds, setting up a cycle of sameness. “Is the system a meritocracy?” asks Daniel Larremore, a computational scientist at CU Boulder who is a co-author of both papers. “In peer review, no; in the spread of ideas, no; and in faculty hiring, surely no.”

Measuring excellence

The Nature paper’s data set included tenured and tenure-track faculty members who worked at PhD-granting institutions in the United States between 2011 and 2020, for a total of 295,089 people at more than 350 institutions. The data came from the Academic Analytics Research Center based in Charlotte, North Carolina, which offered Larremore and the team access to the information. Larremore, Wapman and their colleagues sorted faculty members from the data set into 107 fields, such as ecology and chemistry.

Depending on the field, only 5–23% of faculty members worked at an institution more prestigious than the one at which they earned their PhD, according to the analysis. Fields with the least ‘upward mobility’ included classics and economics, whereas those with the most included animal science and pharmacology.

Hiring committees seem to be using prestige as a proxy for excellence on the job, says Kimberly Griffin, dean of the College of Education at the University of Maryland in College Park. But ‘prestige’ does not necessarily indicate ‘better-qualified’, and prestigious graduate programmes often admit students on the basis of standardized test scores, letters of recommendation and the renown of their undergraduate degree. All of these, research shows, can disadvantage students of colour, says Griffin, who is also editor of the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.

“Accepting that prestige is a good measure of excellence means that we’re not looking into the history of how things became prestigious,” Gonzales says. The founding of elite US universities is “intertwined with exclusion”, she adds. For instance, many institutions have a history of seizing land from Indigenous groups, or originally derived their wealth from or supported their infrastructure with the labour of enslaved Black people.

Learning from the data

The Nature paper found that the proportion of new recruits who are women has remained flat since 2011 in 100 of the 107 fields analysed — and actually decreased in the remaining 7. The overall percentage of women did increase in three-quarters of the fields, but the authors attribute this to a high proportion of men among faculty members who reached retirement age. These trends indicate that efforts to hire more women in academia have not been fruitful, at least since 2011, Larremore says.

He does note two limitations of the gender data set: the team mostly used name–gender cultural associations to categorize faculty members as men or women, which is not necessarily reliable; and there was no non-binary gender category.

The Nature Human Behaviour study used an online survey to gather data from 7,024 tenure-track faculty members in the United States. Clauset has been surprised by how many people have contacted the team about the paper since its publication. “I don’t think we realized how much it would resonate with people in their lived experiences,” he says. Many people who are ‘first generation’ graduate students from families without advanced degrees have said that they feel set apart from their peers who have had more of an advantage, he adds.

There are ways in which academia could de-emphasize prestige and reduce inequalities. The first, basic step is questioning prestige and where it comes from, Gonzales says. She advises hiring committees to list all the places they plan to advertise a position, including their personal connections; examine the institutional diversity of the list; and add HBCUs, HSIs and regional institutions if they are not already included.

Unequal access to faculty jobs across gender, race and socio-economic background has consequences. “There is a huge amount of literature that says who is in the scientific community affects what research questions are asked,” Clauset says. “By not being as diverse as we could be, as inclusive as we could be, we are losing smart people who could change the world for the better.”" [1]

No wonder mostly stupid people are left.

1. Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities. Anna Nowogrodzki, Nature 609, 887 (2022)