LinkedIn vs. Indeed: Are you on the wrong site?

By Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter

LinkedIn and Indeed both work, but they work for different reasons and types of work.

What each platform actually is

LinkedIn is a professional networking site with a powerful job board and recruiting tools.
Indeed is a job search engine that crawls and aggregates postings from employers, job boards and staffing firms across all industries and levels.

Main structural differences:

• LinkedIn is built around rich profiles, connections, content, and messaging, with work sitting on top.

• Indeed revolves around search results, filters, and a quick application process with little emphasis on long-term relationships.

• LinkedIn supports both active and passive job seekers; Indeed primarily serves people who are actively looking now.

The data speaks for itself

When you look at large-scale data, you see a trade-off: Reality wins in volume; LinkedIn wins in selectivity and interview rate.

• An analysis of millions of applications found that the vast majority of job applications came from Indeed, with a much smaller percentage coming from LinkedIn.

• The same data shows that LinkedIn applicants are roughly twice as likely to get an interview as Indeed applicants, even though they make up a smaller share of the total number of applications.

• Indeed remains the most visited job site in the United States, with global traffic far exceeding that of other job sites, with millions of job postings posted around the world.

• With its massive user base, LinkedIn has become a major resource for recruiters, a large portion of whom use it every minute to review candidates and people hired through the platform.

So: it does fill the funnel; LinkedIn tends to field more targeted, higher-signal candidates for professional roles.

Laptop Pros: Where LinkedIn Wins

For college-educated laptop workers (knowledge workers, hybrid/remote workers), LinkedIn is often more strategically important than Indeed.

Why LinkedIn stands out:

• Quality and fit

  • Recruiters often report that LinkedIn consistently delivers higher quality candidates for corporate, IT, finance, marketing, and executive positions.

  • Rich profiles, recommendations, connections, and events provide hiring teams with more context about advancement and culture fit than a bare resume.

• Networking and hidden work

  • LinkedIn was built to reveal the “who” behind the work: hiring managers, team members, shared relationships, and alumni.

  • This makes it easier to bypass generic portals, get warm introductions, and unearth unpublished or under-advertised jobs that never appear on mass job sites.

• passive opportunity

  • Many laptop-level recruiting starts with a recruiter search, InMail outreach, or profile view rather than an application.

  • Even if you’re not actively applying, a strong profile, consistent content, and smart networking can create opportunities.

For laptop professionals, LinkedIn isn’t just “another job site.” It’s your living resume, your reputation engine, and your direct link to decision-makers.

Where Indeed shines (and for whom)

Indeed, it’s still important for laptop workers, but its real superpower is reach and speed, especially outside the white-collar bubble.

What the numbers tell you:

• In fact, much of the application volume in many data sets is driven, along with very high acceptance rates.

• It’s especially effective for high-volume recruiting: entry-level, blue-collar, hourly, and operational positions where employers want to get a large number of applicants quickly.

• It has millions of posts in many countries and heavy mobile usage, making it the default starting point for many job seekers.

This is helpful for laptop professionals:

• Quickly sample the market to understand job titles, salary ranges, and location/remote trends in your target field.

• Suitable for positions at companies that don’t invest heavily in LinkedIn recruiting but still have broad representation on key boards.

For non-degree or non-laptop positions—tech, hospitality, warehouses, frontline services—Indeed (and similar boards) are often more important than LinkedIn because employers rely on them for quick, high-volume purchases.

Side by Side: Professional Laptop vs. Regular Laptop: Comparing the advantages of LinkedIn and Indeed

For platform types, LinkedIn for laptop professionals acts as a professional network and job board, with a heavy emphasis on relationships and reputation. Indeed for Laptop Professionals serves as a job search engine with advantages in search, filtering, and quick application options. LinkedIn is still a network for all employees, but it’s less useful if your job is non-desk and non-work, while Indeed is a broad hiring board that covers nearly every industry and level. In terms of quantity and quality, LinkedIn for laptop professionals offers a lower volume of applications but a lower average signal per applicant. LinkedIn can still provide a high-quality service for all employees, but few employers rely on it for hourly and front-line positions. In fact, for all workers, it dominates the total applications and quotes in many fields. In terms of active versus passive search, LinkedIn for Laptop Professionals is great for passive opportunities through profile searches and networking. In fact, for laptop professionals, active job hunting is almost entirely driven by user queries. LinkedIn’s passive benefits for all employees scale back for positions where recruiters rarely source resources on LinkedIn, while Indeed offers an active search center to nearly any employee with an Internet connection. Among the best use cases, LinkedIn for Laptop Professionals is best suited for corporate, technology, marketing, finance, management, and remote positions that require a degree or portfolio. In fact, for laptop professionals, it is best used as a supplement to market scanning and direct application to specific employers. LinkedIn is helpful for all employees, but is more of a secondary signal in many hourly industries, while Indeed is the primary engine for entry-level, hourly, blue-collar, and high-volume recruiting.

No BS Coaching Points

For college-educated laptop professionals, the smartest thing to do is to think of LinkedIn as your primary platform and Indeed as your support channel, not the other way around.

Specific guidance:

• If you work in a professional, degree level, or distance-friendly field:

  • Make LinkedIn your home base: profile branding, content visibility, networking and direct outreach every week.

  • Use Indeed tactically to identify job openings, calibrate pay/titles, and add some targeted applications.

• If you work in an hourly, blue-collar, or high-volume role:

  • Rely heavily on Indeed and similar boards; that’s where employers in these industries actually fish.

  • Use LinkedIn as a lightweight online resume and for long-term career moves (into supervisory, operational or corporate roles).

• For both groups:

  • Stop relying on “easy application” as your core strategy; on both platforms, it mainly increases your application volume, not your quotes.

  • Pair applications with contacts—messages to hiring managers, referrals to relationships, and short, targeted outreach emails.

Bottom line: LinkedIn is where laptop-level professionals go to build influence, visibility, and warm introductions; in fact, it’s where just about everyone goes to get airbrushed, and it’s where many employers go when they need a body fast. Use both, but be honest about which one is truly a good fit for the career you want, not just the next job you can click on.

Ⓒ Big Game Hunters, Asheville, NC 2025

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LinkedIn vs. Indeed: Are you on the wrong site? First appeared in Jeff Altman’s “Big Game Hunter”.