Scaling for success

Gerard Murnaghan, vice president of sales for EMEA, Indeed.com

Gerard Murnaghan, talks about what drives and motivates him to succeed.

Job search engine Indeed.com has become the industry leader over the past decade, and its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) headquarters is to be found in Dublin. Its head of Irish operations is the experienced Gerard Murnaghan, vice president of sales for EMEA.

“I’m driven, decisive and industrious and I enjoy working at a high, strategic level which is why my role at Indeed.com fits me so well,” he says. “In addition to driving my teams to continuously achieve challenging goals and overcome obstacles, one of the key elements of my role is representing Indeed as a stakeholder in the fast-developing Dublin tech space, and being a driver of positive reform and progress in our industry for the benefit of Indeed and our customers.

Murnaghan’s career has encompassed stints at Oracle, EMC and Apple, where he amassed experience scaling and developing high-performing inside and field sales teams. The European Sales Team, which he leads, is very important as it contributes directly to the company’s revenue goals. “We are focused on consistently delivering for our customers by adopting our job search platform to help them identify, attract and hire talent to fill their vacant positions, allowing them to grow and become even more successful as a company.”

Murnaghan has five tips for motivating a team: communicate well and often, lead by example, empower your employees, offer opportunities to earn well and advance, and celebrate success.

Performance is obviously important given the recruitment industry is worth over $450bn globally. “It is highly fragmented, with various different ways to attract and hire talent,” he explains. “Hence it can be overwhelming and confusing. Indeed.com is a job search engine that brings all the open jobs to one site. This allows jobseekers to actively search by job type and by location.”

Indeed.com meets customers’ needs on three distinct factors: cost per hire, skills mismatch and skills shortages, and employer brand awareness, he says.

For Murnaghan himself, his role as a senior executive in such a prominent organisation is rewarding. “Success for me is spending the majority of my time focused on work or tasks that are fulfilling, leveraging what is within my control, maximising my potential and helping other people in a meaningful way whilst still enjoying the freedom, lifestyle and experiences that I want in my life.”

As for his aspirations for Indeed.com’s future: “Continue to scale across our European offices – in particular, I would like to see Indeed.com reach 1,000 employees in Dublin. We have already made significant strides towards this in Dublin, recently announcing the doubling of our workforce in the city,” he says.

“As a business, we are asking customers to try an alternative approach to how they attract and hire talent.

Many customers have been used to doing something a certain way for a number of years. Old habits are hard to change, but by telling our story well and often, the more efficient and intuitive way of recruiting will continue to take hold.”

As sponsor of the View from the Boardroom, Jim Dowdall, CEO of GloHealth adds: “Clearly, Gerard Murnaghan is driven to ensure the best performance for Indeed.com and under his direction the company has gone grown significantly here in Ireland.