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How AI Is Solving India's Skill Mismatch Crisis: Exclusive Insights from Sashi Kumar, Managing Director - India, Indeed
India's job market surges with 43% of employers expanding hiring this festive season. Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing how companies find talent and job seekers discover opportunities. However, in a market where single postings attract hundreds of applicants and skill mismatches persist, traditional recruitment is struggling to keep pace.
In this exclusive conversation, Sashi Kumar, Managing Director - India at Indeed, reveals how AI is transforming hiring by delivering smarter matches, reducing bias, and empowering both recruiters and candidates. From addressing fairness concerns to redefining recruitment skills, Kumar shares Indeed's vision of technology that enhances—rather than replaces—the human side of hiring.
How is AI changing the way Indian companies identify, assess, and hire talent, and what unique challenges does the Indian job market pose for AI-driven recruitment? How is Indeed resolving them?
Our goal is to make AI not just a layer of efficiency, but a bridge between skills and opportunities.
At Indeed, our mission has always been simple: to help people get jobs. What AI allows us to do is bring that mission to life at scale.
In India, where the number of applicants per role can be massive, AI is helping both sides. Employers can now cut through overwhelming application numbers by instantly surfacing the most relevant candidates, and job seekers benefit from tailored recommendations based on their skills, aspirations, and even location preferences.
How will AI-powered hiring help not only recruiters but job-seekers?
For recruiters, AI is like having a trusted co-pilot. It does the heavy lifting—sorting resumes, scheduling interviews, and screening candidates—freeing them to do what only humans can: connect with people, understand potential, and build relationships.
For job seekers, AI-powered hiring is more about building confidence and clarity. Instead of applying to dozens of roles and waiting in silence, they now receive recommendations that are actually relevant to them. One of India’s larger challenges is mismatches between the skills job seekers possess and the skills employers seek.
So, while AI boosts efficiency, the real benefit is that it reduces uncertainty and empowers everyone involved.
Bias in AI hiring tools remains a global concern. How is Indeed ensuring fairness, inclusivity, and trust while leveraging AI in recruitment?
At Indeed, one of our core principles is that hiring is—and always should be—human. Responsible AI isn’t just about principles on paper; it's about how we govern and make decisions every day. Our rule is simple: if a feature doesn’t meet our ethical standards, it doesn’t move forward. No exceptions. Hiring affects people’s livelihoods, so AI must serve people first. That’s non-negotiable.
We also follow a structured framework to ensure that any new AI tools are strategic, compliant, and aligned with what really matters. We don’t build AI for the sake of AI. We test ideas quickly, see what works, and scale fast when it does. And if it doesn’t, we pivot just as quickly.
In addition, we continuously audit our AI systems, give our developers the resources to build fair and practical models, and stay on top of evolving regulations and best practices. At the end of the day, it’s about creating technology people can trust, so job seekers everywhere get fair and equal access to opportunity.
With AI taking over resume screening and candidate matching, what new skills will both job-seekers and recruiters themselves need to stay relevant in this evolving ecosystem?
As AI becomes central to hiring, job seekers will need to highlight what makes them human: creativity, adaptability, and problem-solving. Recruiters, on the other hand, will need to get comfortable using AI insights while still trusting their instincts. The real value will come from combining technology’s speed with human judgment and empathy.
Recruiters aren’t being replaced, they’re being elevated. AI is transforming the hiring process by handling the high-volume, repetitive tasks that often slow things down, such as initial screening and sorting. But the heart of hiring has always been human.
Do you see AI in hiring as primarily a productivity enhancer, or is it shaping an entirely new model of talent acquisition in India’s job market?
No algorithm can replicate a recruiter’s ability to build trust, read between the lines, and guide someone through one of the most important decisions of their life. That’s why we see AI as an enabler. By giving recruiters more time and sharper insights, it strengthens their role, allowing them to focus on the conversations, relationships, and cultural fit assessments that ultimately shape successful career journeys.
We’ve found that the hiring process slows down most when recruiters are overwhelmed by application volumes and when job seekers experience long silences after applying. These are the bottlenecks that cost employers talent and leave candidates frustrated.
However, AI is helping us address both by improving match quality through smarter recommendations and by automating scheduling and communications to reduce delays. The result isn’t just speed for its own sake, but a more efficient, transparent, and human hiring experience for everyone involved.
Post the festive season, which sectors and cities in India are expected to see rapid hiring with higher salaries?
Our recent data shows that 43% of employers are hiring more this festive season than last year, with the sharpest uptick in retail, e-commerce, logistics, and hospitality. This momentum is likely to continue post-festive period. Overall, India’s hiring landscape is becoming more distributed, and that’s a positive signal for both employers and job seekers.
