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With Google for Jobs, GDPR and Brexit really “helping” Recruitment leaders focus on a sustainable recruitment business model, your website has become front and centre of your marketing. You need it to make you money and not simply build your brand and clicks.
With the launch of the new Barclay Jones website, I’ve been waxing lyrical to clients about my experience of the web development and launch process and I’ve come up with 4 mistakes that every recruitment website may be making.
Recruitment Websites Need to Make Money!
We regularly help recruiters with the project management of recruitment websites, and digital marketing strategies, so this was a busperson’s holiday for us.
During the design phase of the new Barclay Jones web, it was clear to me that focus needed to be given in areas what we take for granted. Recruiters often forget about the journey that the website needs to take the 3Cs on:
Candidates
Client
Consultants
and Cash!
Often, a recruitment marketer is too busy to see beyond the launch of the website – and hence the goal appears to be “launch and wave goodbye”. But any finance/managing director who has freed up marketing budget to buy a new recruitment website wants more money – they want candidates, clients, colleagues and cash (not just an online brochure).
How to Build a Recruitment Website
There’s lots of content out there about how to build a website, and many a recruitment marketer will know the pain of launching a new site whilst holding down their normal day job.
There are a decent number of recruitment specific website companies – many of them offering really valuable advice… but I discovered few practical tips for recruitment marketers to help them drag surfers through the critical buyer’s journey.
Recruitment Website Mistake 1 – Look Dumb!
With GDPR, the focus on the 3Csand recruitment leaders wanting to invest more in their recruiters, personality has never been so important. But often I look at a recruitment website, then meet the business leaders and recruiters and it’s night and day! In the board room I see passionate advocates of their niche – online “we are the fastest growing, boring, USPless job board” (sorry – tough love!)
Why? Because when recruiters “go online” they dumb down… they “de-niche” and they lose their personality. Confidence disappears and recruitment websites do not “sell”. And the blog just talks about “recruitment”
Have a think whilst you read this blog about how you can inject some personality into your recruitment website.
Recruitment Website Mistake 2 – Ignoring your 404 Page
So – this is the page you’d rather not have people go to – the page which people get to as they have entered an incorrect page on your site, or you have directed to them to a page which no longer exists. Why is it that some many recruitment websites go “doh!” amend don’t take the opportunity to drive the surfer to somewhere useful?
Check out this blog about great 404 pages and then check out Barclay Jones’404 page– we loved creating this one for our very own Barclay Jones 404 error page.
If people give a damn enough to come to your site, and then accidentally hit a page which has been deleted / moved, then why are you just saying “computer says no!”? Stick out your hand and guide them to where you want them to go.
Recruitment Website Mistake 3 – Having a Pants Search Results Screen
To be fair I did quite a bit of research on this and there was nothing that I could plagiarise! My instincts are that if people want to find “stuff” on your website, then making the results screen as engaging as possible is crucial. Have a think about how to get them to click on the bits YOU want them to click on to. And if you have any great ideas on this, share them with me
Recruitment Website Mistake 4 – Contact Us – Or Rather, Kill the Lead!
So you spend a fortune in time, money and emotion on getting people to come to your website. They surf about and bingo!, they want to catch up with you. Then you flick your hair and wander away…? Crazy recruiters!
I feel that the Contact Us page is THE most important page on your site. They are coming in to your shop asking for help… Hubspot agrees and has a helpful blog about the best contact us pages.
So many contact us pages are uninspiring, “templatey”, prone to getting people to NOT contact you.
What can you do with your contact page to engage and CONVERT? It’s not enough that they come to your site and your Google Analytics stats improve. You want them to “buy” from you with a subscription (GDPR alert!) or a job application, or dare we suggest that they want to speak to you… Let’s get recruiters’ phones ringing again!
Let’s Make Recruitment Websites Great Again
I couldn’t resist the “Trumpism”. Take a look at your site… figure out which pages you really want people to go to and then ask yourself if they are working hard enough for you… and can you use a little personality in them to drive conversions.
Recruitment Takeaways…
Personality
Capitalise on errors
Turn searches into conversions
Make contact easy!
Create a recruitment website that attracts and retains clients, candidates and consultants…
I train and mentor recruitment marketers to generate the 4Cs: candidates, clients, colleagues and cash.
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Lisa Jones
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Recruiters! 10 Reasons Why Candidate Engagement is Critical
Recruiters and their leaders who want to spend less time and money sourcing, and more time placing, need to read this blog and think about why they need to create a virtuous circle of talent.On our recent Bullhorn Tips webinar, where we focused on candidate management tips, we asked the attendees about their current candidate management strategy.The results were unsurprising, but also disappointing.They told us that their candidate database was...And that their candidate management strategy was...In other words, not future proof or focussed on creating a robust, easy to deliver pipeline. It's mainly focussed on live, active candidates who are imminently placeable... and Linkedin / Job Boards continue to win at the expense of the recruiter and their profits.Recruitment Data Wealth💵💶💷If we've learned anything (at least since 2008) we need a clean, warm databases to see us through easy and tough times.We need engaged, loyal, happy candidates who are easy to find, happy to recommend, refer, and show up!Some recruiters call this "Data Health" - I call it "Data Wealth".I've seen a lot of tech and data hitting the recruitment market, but still do not see enough process improvements to capitalise on it. We just keep buying more, rather than exploring how we actually need less, but need to work it better.It's Time to Move from Vicious to Virtuous!Recruiters still waste crazy amounts of time sourcing and advertising, but not enough time engaging and managing.And ironically, by not engaging, and letting hot data cool off, the industry creates silos of "cold" data. Hence sourcing is key and reliance on external systems is high, costs increase, placements take longer... Vicious cycle!What if, though, we take a moment? Let the stats below sink in, and engage with our systems and data in a proactive way. Could recruiters create a virtuous circle of engaged candidates staying loyal and placeable, meaning less need for job adverts, Linkedin, sourcing, and insanity?Yes!🔢Candidate Management Stats Every Recruiter Should Know78% of placed candidates are already in your CRM. – Yet many recruiters go straight to LinkedIn or job boards before checking their own database.Only 30% of CRM records are typically up to date. – That means 70% of your candidate data might be incomplete, inaccurate, or out of date.60% of recruiters admit to rarely revisiting past candidates. – This leads to missed opportunities and duplicated effort.It costs 6x more to source a new candidate than to re-engage an existing one. – Save budget and time by starting with your CRM.43% of recruiters say poor data quality negatively impacts their ability to place quickly. – Dirty data slows down sourcing, shortlisting, and matching.48% of candidates who apply to a role never hear back. – Proper candidate management helps ensure consistent communication and better candidate experience.80% of candidates say they’d reapply to a company with a good hiring experience. – Engagement doesn’t stop at “not selected”—it builds your future pipeline.Recruiters spend up to 1/3 of their time on admin. – Automation and smart candidate management free up time for relationship-building and placements.Re-engaged candidates are 2x more likely to be placed than cold-sourced ones. – Prior placements and silver medalists are often your hottest leads.Companies that nurture candidates improve quality of hire by 20%. – Keeping in touch with passive talent builds a stronger, more prepared pipeline.The stats above are from a variety of sources, including IBM, TalentBoard, Bullhorn, and LinkedIn.Even just one of the stats above should be enough to make you stop and think "how can I create a virtuous circle of happy, engaged, and placed candidates?"And then ask - "I wonder how Barclay Jones can help with me Bullhorn RoI, Training, and Automation to help me engage my candidates more, and reduce reliance and time/money wasted on Linkedin and Job Boards?"Then arrange a chat with us😇ARRANGE A CALL BACK Watch Our Candidate Engagement WebinarRecruitment and Bullhorn TrainingWe deliver the best live Bullhorn ROI webinar training, and you'll find other tips and tricks in Recruitment HIIT, our online recruitment training platform.Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.TRY HIIT FREE HERECONTACT US ABOUT BULLHORN ROI
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Wayne Barclay
Blog
Automation RoI Webinar Series: Unlock Bullhorn Part 2 ~ Create a Virtuous Circle of Candidates
Recruiters and leaders — ready to do less admin and make more placements?Do you need to be less reliant on LinkedIn and Job Boards, and have a more engaged, valuable database of candidates?Then Part 2 of our "Unlock Bullhorn with Automation" webinar series is for you. We'll fixate on candidate management and engagement.REGISTER NOW💡 Why Candidate Management and Engagement MattersIn our recent Bullhorn Tips Webinar, we asked recruiters about their candidate management strategies.The results?🙈Most recruiters said their CRM was out of date.🙉Even more admitted their candidate engagement was reactive at best.🙊And LinkedIn and job boards still dominate, draining time and budget.AKA vicious cycle. You source externally, internal data gets colder and becomes irrelevant, sourcing becomes slower and costlier. And the cycle repeats.📊 Candidate Management by the Numbers:70%+ of placed candidates already exist in your CRM.It costs 6x more to source a new candidate than to re-engage.Recruiters spend up to 1/3 of their time on admin.Re-engaged candidates are 2x more likely to be placed.Now ask yourself: What if that cycle could be flipped?💥 From Vicious to Virtuous: Using Automation to Flip the Recruitment ScriptInstead, imagine a virtuous circle where:✅ Your CRM is rich with warm, engaged talent.✅ Your pipeline is always ready, without needing a new job ad.✅ Candidates actually reply to your emails.✅ Admin drops, and placements rise.That’s the power of Bullhorn Automation.Join us for this free webinar and learn how to use Bullhorn Automation and smart workflows to build—and sustain—a thriving talent pipeline.This is part of our "Unlock Bullhorn" Automation webinar series.📅 Webinar Highlights🛠️ Real-Life Automation Tips to Drive Recruitment Workflows:Automate outreach to dormant candidates (without sounding robotic).Keep silver medalists engaged for future roles.Trigger real-time updates when candidates change jobs or locations.Build loyalty with consistent communication at every stage of the journey.Drastically reduce sourcing times and costs.💸 Turn Data Health into Data WealthThis Webinar is for you if:You’re tired of LinkedIn / Job Board over-reliance.You want to scale your placements—not your sourcing costs.You want a Bullhorn CRM to be a database and not simply be a data dump.📍 Save Your Spot!When? 21 May 2025: 15:00 BSTREGISTER NOWPS. Want to go even further? Check out our "Unlock Bullhorn with Automation" series.🔍 24 April 2025: Automate sourcing to find qualified candidates faster and with less effort.Watch the recording💬 21 May 2025: Engage with candidates on autopilot and nurture relationships effectively.Register Now📈 Date TBC: Boost lead generation using automation to improve conversion rates.💡 Date TBC: Streamline your recruitment processes for maximum efficiency and profitability.Automation Buddy / Bullhorn RoIWe are Automation Buddies set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses who want to increase speed and sales.We coach to inspire, and build your automations so you can recruit and sell!Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.READ ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION BUDDY SERVICECONTACT US ABOUT BULLHORN ROI
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Wayne Barclay
Webinar
Automation RoI Webinar Series: Unlock Bullhorn Part 2 ~ Create a Virtuous Circle of Candidates
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Matt Edwards
Webinar
Recruiter Productivity Series: Optimise Bullhorn Part 2 ~ Source Faster and Easier
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Rose Megson
Webinar
Recruiter Productivity Series: Optimise Bullhorn Part 1 ~ Engage, Nurture, Place, and Re-Place
