This is what we’re thinking…

Last week the realityhouse recruitment team sat down to review some new functionality for our recruitment website system and this raised the question…

“how you create the perfect recruitment website?”

This got us thinking. We know that every recruitment company is different, but here are the basics that we came up with – we’d be interested to hear your thoughts…

1. Branding - Every recruitment website needs clear brand messages – why choose us? What makes us different? For candidates this might be around range of opportunities or clients, expertise in a sector or quality of service. For clients this might be based on a range of service options, again expertise in a particular sector or region or quality of consultants.
2. Corporate Identity - Once you have your messages, you need to deliver them in a clear, distinctive and memorable way. It’s all about extending your corporate identity – your logo, taglines, fonts and colours – along with strong imagery that reflects your firm.
3. Full Function Recruitment WebsiteWhen it comes to the website itself, perfection is all about great functionality and ease of use – for visitors and for you.

   This means an easy to use content management system that enables you to update text, images and video. A system that enables you to add and remove pages, jobs, news and blogs. A system that gives you the flexibility to amend and update your website over time, the way that you want it.

   For visitors, it’s all about easy to use and instinctive navigation. Candidates need an intuitive job search; the ability to store CVs, track applications and to be update by email, SMS or social media. Clients expect easy to access information, good quality content about their sector and interests, quick contact forms as well as the potential to submit jobs or review candidates.

4. Going Mobile - The next step is a mobile accessible site. With more people accessing the internet by mobile than PCs by 2013, it is vital to have a site that works on mobile devices – including having a range of application options that work from a mobile.
5. Integration with Social Media - LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube as well as the rapidly emerging Branch Out service can all potentially be part of your recruitment website. A modern recruitment website needs to be the hub of this activity giving visitors instant access to profiles and connections as well as feeding content to the various social media platforms.
6. Integration with Search Engines - In the buzz about social media, it is easy to overlook the importance of search and Google in particular. Every recruitment site should feed information direct to Google (and the other search systems) and use the numerous tools available to ensure high search ranking.
7. Integration with Offline Systems - From job up-loaders such as Broadbean and Idibu to full agency management systems such as Voyager, Microdek and Bond, your site should plug-in wherever possible automating processes and easing the administrative workload.
8. Reliable Hosting and Support - Of course, your website deserves good high availability hosting – you need your site to be online all the time. And rapid support for when you want to make changes.
9. Finally… a certain something- Design flare, engaging functionality, a unique application – the something that makes your website stand out from the recruitment website crowd. The something that makes your recruitment website unique.Well those are our quick thoughts. What do you think? Have we missed anything? What would you want from a site? Use the form to contact us and let us know. And we’ll publish the best thoughts we receive.