Recruitment Companies and Websites: Why the struggle?

Recruitment companies can often be a little behind the curve in terms of their website. Why? And what can be done about this? 

We like recruitment companies here at Venn. Our MD is EVEN ex recruitment.

But gosh darn it why do they struggle to see the value in a really great website and digital strategy?

Well, for a start recruitment tends to be a short term, reactive process. Vacancies come in, usually via outbound business development, and consultants react and source candidates. Websites are a long term strategy, the benefit of which sometimes takes months to come to fruition. Are resources not better invested in developing staff to be better at selling and resourcing?

Secondly, recruiters tend to have a network, a database and an array of job boards as well as Linkedin, through which to find candidates and make further connections. If they can go out and find people with a few phone calls and emails, why should they bother investing time and money trying to get people to contact them?

Thirdly, the website will have two target markets – clients and candidates – looking for different things. How do you separate them? Do you separate them? Why spend time strategizing when you can get out there and talk to people and get stuff done?

Despite these questions, I’d say pretty much all recruitment companies do have a website. They recognised the need to be seen to be doing it, so they built one. Often their vacancies get automatically posted to it, but apart from that it’s been left alone since birth. An online brochure to direct people to in an embarrassed way and link to on email signatures, but largely redundant, languishing on the 8^th page of Google.

Often they’re built by designers with little to no recruitment experience, or, in smaller companies, by a member of staff with little to no real design experience.

Sound familiar?

Believe us, as people who work with many recruitment companies. Websites and a good digital strategy are so important. Yes it takes some time to implement but once it happens, once you’re up there on Google, looking stylish, professional, funky and exciting, you’ll have a whole new world of candidates and clients opened up to you without you chasing them. And you’ll have something you can be proud of.

Hopefully in the next few editions you’ll become convinced of the benefits and realise that with the right help it isn’t that much of a struggle to get there.