About Jobstreet by SEEK
Jobstreet by SEEK is the leading employment platform in Southeast Asia, helping people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and helping organisations succeed. It is a subsidiary of SEEK, a diverse group of companies comprised of a strong portfolio of online employment, educational, commercial, and volunteer businesses. SEEK has a strong presence across the APAC region, including Australia, New Zealand, and six Asian markets – Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand – through the Jobstreet and Jobsdb brands.
Indonesia’s Employment Crisis in 2024
In 2024, Indonesia saw a sharp rise in layoffs as global economic pressures forced companies to downsize. Key sectors were hit hard, leaving thousands without jobs and fueling widespread insecurity. With a large, young workforce, the need to stabilize the job market became urgent, calling for bold initiatives to spur job creation and restore confidence.
The Rise of Fake Job Ads
As job seekers faced mounting pressure, fake job ads became a growing threat. Scammers exploited online platforms, posting false listings to steal data or money from applicants. This surge in fraud eroded trust in digital recruitment, pushing Jobstreet by SEEK to act.
Jobstreet by SEEK wanted to increase conversions from both hirers and candidates. At the same time, the brand wanted to reinforce its role as a trusted tech recruitment platform by encouraging businesses to create legitimate job opportunities and restoring trust in the job market.
The brand faced a major challenge: its Indonesia’s media spend was heavily concentrated in Java, particularly Jakarta, leaving other regions underserved despite having active users and growing demand. Without intervention, the existing budget would continue to over-target the same saturated areas, missing out on growth opportunities elsewhere.
The task was to reallocate media more evenly across the country and reach out to all provinces in Indonesia without increasing spend. This includes ensuring presence in cities where Jobstreet branches are located, e.g., Medan, Bandung, Jakarta, Semarang, Jogja, Surabaya, and Bali. This meant confronting long-standing distribution imbalances while still maintaining performance in Java, which remained crucial for revenue.
To spark real change during a time of rising unemployment and economic uncertainty, Jobstreet adopted a movement strategy to reflect a national call to action.
Job seekers were facing growing skepticism due to fake listings and employment scams, while many hirers were hesitant to post roles amid financial strain and unclear ROI. To rebuild confidence on both sides, Jobstreet launched the #NextMillionJobs movement anchored in the belief that positive employer action could help catalyze Indonesia’s economic recovery.
At the heart of this movement was a partnership with Reza Rahadian, one of Indonesia’s most respected actors and a vocal advocate for societal progress. His involvement gave the campaign emotional depth and national credibility, positioning Jobstreet as not just a platform but a trusted ally in rebuilding the job market.
The creative approach spanned:
The campaign also integrated a product-led narrative, highlighting Jobstreet’s freemium model to encourage more hirers to list jobs with zero upfront cost, lowering the barrier to entry in a cautious economic climate.
The movement welcomed all stakeholders. A press conference with Gita Wirjawan, former Minister of Trade and a prominent public figure, amplified the message in mainstream media and policymaker circles. Content from this event was repurposed into social storytelling, sparking rare organic engagement from hirers, a segment not typically driven by unpaid media.
Jobstreet’s nationwide campaigns have usually defaulted to saturating Java’s biggest cities, Jakarta, Surabaya, and Bandung, where media competition is fierce and CPMs are high. But this legacy approach created a blind spot: non-Java regions remained underutilized, even as jobseeker demand and employer interest grew steadily in these areas.
With the Next Million Jobs movement, Jobstreet challenged this status quo.
The team introduced a region-first media strategy to rebalance national visibility. Indonesia was segmented into five strategic zones: Java, Non-Java Central, Non-Java East, Non-Java West, and Greater Sumatra.
This allowed Jobstreet to not only defend volume and revenue in Java, but also launch an offensive in underserved, less competitive markets without increasing spend. To activate each region meaningfully, the campaign adopted a 60-day rotational focus, extending beyond digital to include offline events and local activations.
Execution was made possible through a multi-agency partnership between M+C Saatchi Performance, Panterei, and Mutant, ensuring consistent delivery across all markets and touchpoints.
To deliver results without increasing spend, the campaign adopted a budget distribution model grounded in regional priorities and evolving market dynamics.
Java remained the core driver of revenue, so a steady 50% of the conversion media budget was allocated to maintain consistent performance in this digitally mature and highly competitive zone.
In contrast, non-Java regions were positioned as the campaign’s growth engine. These areas were activated through a bi-monthly rotation system, with 30% of the conversion budget directed to a designated “focus region” outside Java during each 60-day cycle. The remaining 10% was distributed across other non-focus regions, ensuring continuous presence and momentum building across the rest of the country.
When it came to awareness, the approach was broader but equally strategic. 60% of the awareness media budget was deployed at a national level, reinforcing JobStreet’s brand credibility and platform trust across all key audience segments regardless of geography.
This mix of stability in Java and agility in non-Java markets allowed the campaign to unlock new demand, rebalance media equity across Indonesia, and sustain impact.
To drive efficient action across this footprint, the team deployed a push-pull media mix tailored to each region’s digital behavior and market maturity.
Beyond geography, the campaign also addressed audience under-indexing by age. Using deep platform insights from Meta, TikTok Business Center, and YouTube Analytics, the team mapped platform affinity to age cohorts, resulting in highly effective age-personalized media sequencing:
Each user journey was designed to move from awareness to consideration to action, with creative and messaging tailored to the motivations and behaviors of each age group.
This multi-layered strategy resulted in significant gains across non-Java markets:
Over six months (October 2024 – March 2025), the Next Million Jobs campaign delivered measurable, transformative impact across Indonesia by rebalancing media spend.
By shifting away from a Java-heavy media strategy and investing in regional relevance, Jobstreet ensured that 50% of all conversions came from non-Java regions, marking a significant change from previous media concentration.
Jobstreet also saw a 50% increase in website traffic compared to pre-campaign levels, signaling renewed interest and trust among both job seekers and employers.
Hirer Campaign Highlights
Candidate Campaign Highlights
In the face of economic uncertainty and limited resources, Jobstreet ignited a nationwide movement. The Next Million Jobs movement went beyond traditional marketing to rally job seekers, employers, and even public figures around a shared goal: rebuilding Indonesia’s job market with trust, opportunity, and collective action.
By addressing the dual needs of job seekers and hirers, and shifting from a one-size-fits-all strategy to a regionally nuanced, insight-led approach, Jobstreet was able to unlock demand in untapped regions, balance performance nationwide, and re-establish itself as Indonesia’s most trusted employment platform.
“This campaign challenged us to think differently. With limited budget flexibility, we had to be intentional about where and how we showed up. We focused on building a strategy that was audience-first, regionally balanced, while ensuring the key messaging gets across well to the audience. The results showed that this approach worked, applications went up, hirer leads grew, and we reached people more meaningfully across Indonesia. It was a great reminder that even without more budget, the right strategy can still drive real impact.”
“Working within our budget, M+C Saatchi Performance successfully expanded our Next Million Jobs campaign to reach across Indonesia and helped us achieve solid growth in regions we hadn’t focused on before. We really appreciated their flexibility in working with our 60-day area rotation approach and implementing it effectively. They understood that we needed to maintain our presence in Java while systematically exploring opportunities in other parts of Indonesia. Their strategic approach allowed us to reach new audiences without compromising our established markets.”
