In the world of recruitment, events like Rec Expo hold undeniable value. They offer a chance to rub shoulders and make connections, drawing in agencies of all shapes and sizes.&nbsp;
But, there&rsquo;s a downside. It can cost thousands of pounds for RecTechs and recruitment marketing companies like SourceFlow to exhibit at Expo. We know because we tried it in 2023.
What was this money spent on? For our banners to be visible as attendees walk by&hellip; Never again.
We reckon top-notch marketing isn't just about being visible; it's about hitting the bullseye with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
We've got our sights set on a specific crowd &ndash; we typically attract recruitment agencies with more than 30 consultants who've invested in a dedicated recruitment marketing team or agency.&nbsp;
So why the heck did we ditch the glitz of a Rec Expo booth for the digital advert you saw? Surely, there will be SOME ICP prospects attending?! Yes, but we have found the majority of attendees sit outside our ICP.
At SourceFlow, we got together to revise our marketing strategy for Rec Expo 2024. We decided that we will attract more new clients by running a Google advertising campaign than by exhibiting at Rec Expo, and for a fraction of the price. This ad cost just 1.5% of the cost of what we spent exhibiting at the Rec Expo in 2023. And guess what?! You&rsquo;re sitting here now reading this article!
By flipping the script and going digital, we're able to zero in on our target audience with sniper-like precision, making sure every quid we spend packs a punch.&nbsp;
If you want to be like us, a smart recruitment marketer. Check out what SourceFlow can do for your agency. Our recruitment websites amplify client lead generation, track candidate origin sources effectively, increase marketing ROI, streamline content management, and boost organic SEO.
<a href="https://www.sourceflow.co.uk/book-a-demo/">Click here to book a demo of SourceFlow.</a>

Smart recruitment marketing: Why we back digital ads over Rec Expo stands

SourceFlow's recruitment websites and marketing tools unlock new levels of growth for recruitment agencies and staffing firms.
In this article, SourceFlow CEO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattcomber?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_miniProfile%3AACoAAAVVEkoBhuRznxqjUt3fxfjtWwv4XMkboTw&amp;lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_all%3BSSScscZ6SfeJjK56upAnGA%3D%3D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matt Comber</a> talks about why recruitment websites that have a Headless CMS (Content Management System) are optimising sales and marketing outcomes for recruiters.
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In the realm of <a href="https://www.sourceflow.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recruitment marketing</a> and website design, the landscape is constantly evolving.&nbsp;
As CEO of <a href="https://www.sourceflow.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SourceFlow</a>, a leading recruitment website agency, I've witnessed this evolution firsthand over the past decade. One concept that has revolutionised the way we approach website development is the Headless CMS.
For those unfamiliar, Headless CMS offers a new paradigm in website creation, providing unparalleled flexibility, usability, speed, reach, future-readiness, and security. Let's delve into why it's transforming the recruitment website industry.
Flexibility is key. Unlike traditional CMS platforms with predefined templates, Headless CMS allows for complete customisability. Every aspect of the website, from layout to content architecture, can be tailored to reflect the unique identity of each recruitment agency.
Usability is paramount. With Headless CMS, the separation of front and back end empowers agencies to build their content management system. This means rapid adaptation to changing needs, such as effortlessly adding new sections like podcasts to the website.
Speed is essential. Slow websites frustrate users and harm SEO rankings. Headless CMS lightens the load, ensuring swift navigation and improved engagement. At SourceFlow, we've prioritised website speed, a factor that sets us apart in the industry.
Reach extends beyond desktops. With Headless CMS, content can be easily shared across various devices and social platforms, amplifying the agency's message and reaching a wider audience.
Future-readiness is crucial. In an ever-evolving digital landscape, integration with new technologies is seamless with Headless CMS, keeping <a href="https://www.sourceflow.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recruitment websites</a> up-to-date and ahead of the curve.
Security is paramount. Headless CMS offers an added layer of security by separating the front and back end, safeguarding sensitive recruitment data from potential threats.
At SourceFlow, we've embraced the Headless CMS approach, driven by our commitment to innovation and excellence in <a href="https://www.sourceflow.co.uk/">recruitment website design</a>. While we're continually improving our platform, we're confident that our approach offers unparalleled benefits to recruitment agencies.
<h3>If you want to know how the power of Headless CMS can amplify for recruitment marketing and how SourceFlow websites improve marketing ROI for firms that use Bullhorn, <a href="https://www.sourceflow.co.uk/book-a-demo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">book a demo of the SourceFlow platform</a>.</h3>

The Evolution of Recruitment Websites: Embracing Headless CMS

SourceFlow were named winners of the prestigious Innovation Award by The Power Hive for their groundbreaking strides in recruitment marketing in 2023.&nbsp;
Although SourceFlow are chiefly known for being specialists at building recruitment websites, this recognition validates the company's commitment to pushing boundaries since their inception in 2022, especially acknowledging their array of product innovations that reshaped the recruitment marketing industry in 2023.
Their remarkable progress last year, boasting a phenomenal 335% increase in website launches, speaks volumes about their relentless pursuit of revolutionising recruitment marketing technologies.
What set SourceFlow apart and significantly contributed to their win were their game-changing product innovations. These included:
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Journey Tracking: Revolutionising the understanding of candidate journeys, providing invaluable insights.
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Content Categories: Simplifying content management, making it more effective and organised.
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AI Job Advert Writer for Bullhorn Users: Streamlining and enhancing the job advertising process for recruiters that use industry-leading applicant tracking system Bullhorn.
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Multi Factor Authentication: Ensuring robust security measures for user accounts.
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AI-Powered Job Search Updates: Leveraging AI to enhance the job search experience for recruiters and candidates.
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Industry-Leading Integrations: Pioneering integrations that set industry benchmarks.
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Keith Southern, Director and Co-Founder of The Power Hive - an acclaimed community of recruitment leaders, said: "SourceFlow has completely turned the sector on its head, expanding beyond their dreams and surpassing their own expectations in 2023, with an even more promising 2024 ahead. Their innovative approach has set them apart as a true standout contender. Congratulations to the team!"
SourceFlow CEO Matt Comber expressed his gratitude on LinkedIn: "A massive shout-out to The Power Hive and its members for their invaluable votes and support. It truly means the world to us. I want to extend a huge shoutout to our exceptional team whose tireless dedication has been pivotal in shaping our innovative products. In particular, I want to recognise the remarkable contributions of Matthew Whiteley and Ka-Shing Tan, whose unwavering commitment has been instrumental in driving our product innovations forward."
Discover how SourceFlow's innovative solutions can propel your recruitment agency forward in 2024 by <a href="../../../../../../book-a-demo/">booking a demo today</a>.
Partner with a company that doesn't just adapt to change but drives it, reshaping the landscape of recruitment Marketing.

SourceFlow bag award for recruitment marketing excellence

Sourceflow is a recruitment marketing tech provider that has been making waves in the industry ever since its inception. They have always believed in providing their clients with the latest and most innovative tech to help them simplify recruitment marketing. Recently, they integrated with ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that has revolutionized the way content is created. The integration of Sourceflow and ChatGPT has made it easier than ever before to write website content. With this integration, users can simply input their topic or subject matter into the chatbot and it will generate high-quality content in a matter of seconds. This means that users no longer have to spend hours researching and writing content themselves, as the chatbot does all the hard work for them. Sourceflow is the first company in their industry to integrate with ChatGPT, which is a testament to their commitment to innovation and providing their users with the best tools available. The integration has been a game-changer for marketers, as it has significantly reduced the time and effort required to create high-quality content. 
Please reach out if you want to find out more about how SourceFlow can help your recruitment marketing needs.&nbsp;
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ChatGPT write me a blog on how SourceFlow is the first supplier in the industry to integrate you

Wondering what ChatGPT is? Why have over a million people already signed up to test it out? Wondering what it will mean for recruitment marketing? We've got you covered. What is ChatGPT?ChatGPT is a variant of the GPT-3 language model that is specifically designed for conversation. It uses the latest natural language processing techniques to generate responses to user input in a conversational manner. Because ChatGPT is a language model, it can understand and generate a wide range of language, including human-like responses to questions and prompts. It can be used for a variety of applications, such as chatbots, customer service agents, and even as a conversational AI companion. This can help marketing teams save time and improve the quality of their communications with customers. ChatGPT for recruitment marketersThere are several potential impacts of ChatGPT for recruitment marketing teams:<ol><li>Increased efficiency: ChatGPT can automate many routine tasks such as answering frequently asked questions and scheduling interviews, freeing up time for recruitment marketers to focus on more strategic tasks.</li><li>Improved candidate experience: Chatgpt can provide personalised and timely responses to candidates, making the recruitment process more convenient and engaging.</li><li>Enhanced data analysis: ChatGPT can collect and analyse data on candidate interactions, providing insights into their preferences and behaviour. This can help recruitment marketers optimise their recruitment strategies.</li><li>Increased candidate engagement: By providing instant responses and personalised content, ChatGPT can improve candidate engagement and increase the chances of successful recruitment.</li><li>Increased reach: ChatGPT can be used to reach and engage with a wider pool of candidates, including those who may not be actively searching for job opportunities. This can help recruitment marketers target a broader range of potential candidates.</li></ol> Overall, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for marketing teams, helping them to create personalised and engaging content, improve customer relationships, and increase their efficiency and productivity. Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@possessedphotography?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Possessed Photography</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/robot?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Unsplash</a>

What is ChatGPT and what does it mean for recruitment marketing?

<h1>Using Recruitment Analytics to supercharge your content marketing</h1> <h3>How Analytics Can Help You Identify Opportunities for Growth</h3> If you’re like most marketers, you probably spend more time thinking about how to get people to buy your product than you do about making sure customers actually want what you sell. But if you’ve ever tried marketing content, you know that it takes a lot of work to create something that helps prospects solve their problems. And while you might get some initial traction with your content, chances are good that it won’t stick around long enough to make any real difference.The problem isn’t just that you don’t have enough ideas; it’s that many of them aren’t worth sharing. That means you need to find ways to identify which ones generate the kind of engagement that matters—and that means using analytics to measure audience behaviour. If you’ve never looked at your data before, these tips should help get you started. <h3>What Analytics Tell Us About Our Audience</h3>Analytics can show us lots of things about our audiences. Here are three examples: <ul><li>In-depth demographics: Analytic tools give us detailed information about who is reading our content, including age, gender, location, income level, and even interests. By understanding what kinds of people we reach and where they live, we can tailor our messaging to speak directly to them.</li><li>Keywords: Analytics let us target our messages based on keywords. We can find out which words people use to search for information online, and then use those same terms to promote our own products and services.</li><li>Behavioural trends: Analytics can tell us whether people are clicking on links, downloading files, completing forms, or filling out surveys. These insights allow us to understand what actions drive interest and sales.</li></ul> <h3>Why Content Should Be Measured Before Publishing</h3> As soon as you put anything out there, you start losing control over how it performs. But if you don’t measure what happens after you publish, you’ll never learn how well your efforts are working.Websites, blogs, videos, ebooks, social posts, ads, and pretty much everything else on the web are measured and tracked by analytics solutions. When visitors interact with your site, the tracking software captures details like page views, clicks, and conversions (like purchases).By measuring your content performance, you can optimise your campaigns to ensure that each piece of content gets the results you expect. <h3>The Importance of Real-Time Measurement</h3> Real-time measurement lets you test new ideas without waiting weeks or months to see the results. You can adjust your message immediately to respond to changing conditions. <h3>Data-driven content marketing</h3> Data-driven content marketing is a collection of strategies and tactics focused on utilising data analytics to create valuable content. As consumer expectations become increasingly higher, brands have to meet these demands with innovative ideas. These ideas should not only be interesting, but they should also add value to their audience. Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@dawson2406?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Stephen Dawson</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/analytics?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Unsplash</a>

Using Recruitment Analytics to supercharge your content marketing

<h3>Introduction: The Current Situation</h3> Currently, job applications are taken (in the most part) via application forms on websites. The forms are either driven from software embedded in the technical solution, such as in proprietary software, or via third party plugins such as in the case of Wordpress.&nbsp; The first thing I want to say here is that there’s nothing wrong with this method. In the same way that there was nothing wrong with going to Blockbuster and buying videos (I miss those days). The issue is that technology is moving quickly and users' patience and expectations, especially the new generation of workforce, are outstripping the ‘fit’ of traditional form methods.&nbsp; <h3>What the future holds</h3> The future of job applications is not as straightforward as it may seem. Currently, the job application is a form driven process with little flair or room for personalised experiences. With the rise of AI, we can expect to see a lot more automation in the process. This will make it easier for companies to find the best candidates for their jobs and also save them time and money. AI will be able to scan through resumes and cover letters, identify keywords, and then rank them based on how well they match the job description. It will also be able to scan through social media profiles and identify potential candidates that are a good fit for the company’s culture.In the short term, we expect to see conversational applications, where, similar to Typeform, the application process is gamified, rather than in a long form. This gives users instant gratification and means agencies can request more information, without making it feel daunting for job seekers.&nbsp;<h3> </h3><h3>What the Experts Say About the Future of Job Applications</h3> ﻿According to *PWC 81% of candidates applying for jobs are happy to share their social media information with agencies and employers as long as their data is protected. Sharing this type of information might improve the job fit for a candidate, meaning better placements for recruiters.&nbsp;The same PWC report also says 77% of candidates wouldn’t apply for a job is they felt privacy wasn’t being protected, so being clear and transparent in how &amp; why you process data.&nbsp; According to a report by **HBS and Accenture, AI recruitment systems are blocking an estimated 27 million people from finding full-time work. Companies using automation, which is often AI-driven, are, without knowing it, rejecting viable candidates, which means these people are "hidden" from recruiters. As many as 75% of employers rely on this technology, according to the report, which shows the potential unknown damage that AI could be causing to the hiring process.&nbsp; <h3>What is Artificial Intelligence and How Will it Change the Way We Look at Job Applications?</h3> AI has been used in the job application process for a while now. It can be used to scan resumes, identify skills, and even generate interview questions.The AI-powered resume scanning software can scan through thousands of resumes in minutes and find the best candidates for a given position.The good news is that AI should improve the application process for job seekers and agencies by matching people to opportunities at a far faster rate than a human could do, effectively eliminating stages of the hiring process.&nbsp;However, as highlighted in the WEForum report, there are teething issues to be ironed out that may be costing people jobs at present.&nbsp; *<a href="https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/business-transformation/library/hr-recruiting.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/business-transformation/library/hr-recruiting.html</a> **<a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/artificial-intelligence-job-recruitment-process/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/artificial-intelligence-job-recruitment-process/</a> Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@bendavisual?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Benjamin Davies</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/future?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Unsplash</a>

The Future of Job Applications (and the Increasing Chance of AI Taking Over)

<h3>Introduction: What is Consumer Grade Recruitment?</h3>Consumer grade recruitment is the process of conducting recruitment activities (either niche assignments or mass hiring) that creates a simple, exceptional and consistent experience for all candidates. The process should not not require any special skills or training for the client or candidate but should be consistent every time.&nbsp; <h3>What Are Some Examples of Online Personalisation?</h3>One of the most popular examples of online personalisation in recruitment is a job search engine. The search engine takes into account your keyword &amp; location search and finds jobs that suit you. The job search can be better refined using filters to personalise often large data sets to return a couple of relevant results. Another example is creating a <a href="www.sourceflow.co.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(67, 67, 67);">recruitment website</a> experience that adapts itself based around usage. For example, if a user is viewing jobs in a certain sector, the website will adapt itself to look like it’s a specialist website for the popular sector. The personalisation engine will adapt the website on a per-user basis.&nbsp;An example growing in popularity is chatbots. Chatbots provide a personalised service and give customers what they need without any human interaction. This is a ‘channel-shift’ option where instead of driving users to a human, you drive them to a digital agent to provide a personalised experience.&nbsp;<h3> </h3><h3>What Are the Benefits of Using a Personalisation Platform?</h3> Personalisation is a powerful tool in recruitment. It can help you to attract the right clients, candidates and consultants, and it can also help you to make sure that those groups are happy with the process.The benefits of using personalisation in your <a href="www.sourceflow.co.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(67, 67, 67);">recruitment technology</a> are:- It helps you stand out from the crowd of generic recruitment agencies that provide blanket digital recruitment offerings.- It helps you to attract the right candidates, clients and consultants for your company.- It helps you to make sure that your candidates are happy with the process.- It helps you to save time and money on hiring by reducing waste..- It helps you to increase employee engagement and retention rates by finding the right people.<h3> </h3><h3>Conclusion: The Future of Consumer Grade Recruitment and how to Benefit from it Today</h3> The future of recruitment is consumer grade. It is not just about the technology, but also about how we use it. Consumer grade recruitment technology has been around for a while now and it has been changing the way we recruit people. It has made the process more efficient and cost-effective and yet a lot of businesses still don’t see the importance of it and put their faith in dated practices. The consumer grade recruitment experience is not just about the technology, but also about how we use it ﻿﻿﻿﻿Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@chatelp?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pierre Châtel-Innocenti</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/simple?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Unsplash</a>

The New Wave of Consumer Grade Recruitment: How Companies are Hiring & Retaining Talent through Personalised Online Experiences

<h3>Introduction</h3> Finding and utilising the best job search technology around is a difficult process. It takes time and effort to find the right vendor and fit for your business. But with the help of the right technology, it has become easier than ever before to make the experience of matching candidates and jobs simple.&nbsp;There are many job search engines available on the internet that can help your candidates find their dream job. These engines should in theory make a job seekers life easier by providing them with all the information that they need in one place. The truth however, is much different. Inconsistencies in job search, poor user experience &amp; technological limitations often create a frustrating experience that sees potential candidates leaving websites.&nbsp;The following article will provide a quick start guide to consumer grade job search technology and how it can be used to win over more candidates.<h3> </h3><h3>What do we mean by consumer grade job search technology?</h3> Consumer grade job search technology is a type of software that is designed to help people find jobs. It can be used by anyone who is looking for work and to power the website of any agency looking to provide an exceptional experience to its users online.&nbsp;Consumer grade job search technology is one facet of the wider <a href="https://www.sourceflow.co.uk/news/The-New-Wave-of-Consumer-Grade-Recruitment-Retaining-Talent-through-Personalised-Online-Experiences/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(67, 67, 67);">consumer grade recruitment experience</a>, specifically aimed at the candidate experience.&nbsp;A consumer grade job search experience should provide a seamless, almost thoughtless experience for candidates. It should be so easy to use that they don’t need any sort of visual cues or training to use whilst at the same time have the right technical setup to catch any mistakes they make such as typos.&nbsp;<h3> </h3><h3>Why does my job search need to be consumer grade?</h3> Building technology that powers job searching is the most complex part of any <a href="www.sourceflow.co.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(67, 67, 67);">recruitment website</a>. Large companies may have their own internal hiring and recruiting teams, whereas smaller companies might use off-the-shelf talent solutions, but both want quality results for candidates and job postings.Trying to match these together may sound simple on the surface, but traditional keyword searching is too simplistic and gets choked up in some situations, such as;<ul><li>hidden or extraneous keywords, also known as keyword stuffing&nbsp;</li><li>job postings that require five years of experience in a technology that's really only been around for two years</li><li>and things like typos, acronyms, and overuse of technical jargon</li></ul>Ultimately, these lead to poor experiences and bad candidate fits.<h3> </h3><h3>What are SourceFlow doing to improve the job search experience?</h3> The Cloud Talent Solution job search API is designed to power the job search experience with built-in machine learning algorithms. In short, we send your job listing information over, such as your company information and job details, to the job search API. The API analyses the job data to develop an understanding of the jobs. Once jobs have been indexed by the API, candidates can search against the jobs and get search results by relevance or other sorting preferences.There are four common use cases that typically leverage a solution like this;<ul><li>job boards where the site returns a list of jobs to job seekers</li><li>career site providers that provide career site services to client companies,</li><li>Recruitment &amp; Staffing agencies which provide short or long-term employees to clients</li><li>and applicant tracking systems which are used by companies to track applicants through the hiring process.</li></ul>The job search API is designed to be modified to best fit with your needs, and the API's performance can vary significantly based on how it's configured.Also, it's worth noting that the job search API is not to be confused with the jobs indexing API that facilitates jobs showing up on google.co.uk search.There's a separate indexing API to have job listings show up on searches that people make on google.co.uk that SourceFlow also integrate with.<h3> </h3><h3>The Difference Between Job Boards and Recruitment websites</h3> Job boards are a place where people can post their job openings and potential employees can find and apply for them. They offer a highly monetised service offering which has to appeal to a wide range of different customers. Job boards invest heavily into Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, usually far in excess of recruitment agencies and their own websites. <a href="www.sourceflow.co.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(67, 67, 67);">Recruitment websites</a>, on the other hand, are a place where agencies can post their vacancies in order to attract potential candidates, clients and consultants into their own business. .The difference between job boards and <a href="www.sourceflow.co.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(67, 67, 67);">recruitment websites</a> is that the former is more focused on the employer’s perspective while the latter is more focused on the employee’s perspective.<h3> </h3><h3>Conclusion</h3> There are huge revenue benefits to improving the job search technology on your recruitment agencies website;<ul><li>Find the right candidates faster with specialist acquisition technology&nbsp;</li><li>Enrich the experience for candidates</li><li>Streamline and gradually improve your talent acquisition process with machine learning</li><li>Increase quality hires by using ML to understand the intent of your users in real time. This means your candidates get matched to ideal jobs faster and therefore placed with your clients faster</li><li>By using ML your job search can automatically make sense of confusing job descriptions and search queries.</li><li>Keep your websites tech up to date by using cloud technology </li></ul>

A Quick Start Guide to Consumer Grade Job Search Technology

Bruce Wilson had joined as ‘Head of Creative’ to lead the SourceFlow team of designers and developers in the pursuit of high quality, high impact websites. With over 15 years experience in the web industry (8 in the recruitment website space) Bruce was the only choice for SourceFlow. Craig Howard has joined as ‘Head of Sales’ to lead the sales efforts for SourceFlow and ensure a healthy customer acquisition pipeline with the best recruitment agencies. A veteran in this market, Craig’s network of amazing contacts along with his relentless pursuit of great customers made him the natural choice.&nbsp; Finally, Helen Taylor has joined as ‘Head of Customer Experience’ to guarantee that every SourceFlow customer has an incredible experience in their lifetime as a SourceFlow customer. With over 6 years of recruitment website project management experience, Helen was looking for the next step in her career and is loving developing the customer service proposition for SourceFlow. SourceFlow CEO Matt Comber commented; “Hiring incredible talent is vital to the success of SourceFlow as we embark on a journey to become The Recruitment Marketing Platform. Bruce, Craig and Helen understand what it takes to deliver incredible customer websites and support customers throughout their customer lifecycle with us. Having such an experienced team so early in our journey shows our commitment to being the first choice for recruitment agencies globally.”

SourceFlow is proud to announce the appointment of Bruce Wilson, Craig Howard and Helen Taylor

The most powerful job search technology in the world?

First things first What’s a first party cookie? Generally when we think of cookies, we think of standard cookies. These cookies keep you logged in to websites or help personalise experiences.&nbsp; Example: A user visits your recruitment website. As the page loads, some script (code) that you have included behind the scenes on your website runs. To make that script come to life, a ‘cookie’ is placed on the browser of the user that start to track their behaviour. The user applies for a job and logs in, the cookie stores the session and when the user revisits the website they remain logged in. Because the users behaviour (every page they click on) is tracked and we know their name, we might start to recommend content/jobs to them and personalise our messaging. We might also remember jobs they started the application for but never finished, when they return to the job we might prompt them to complete the application. This is all done via first-party cookie tracking and is generally good for user experience as we’re remembering crucial bits of information to improve the users enjoyment levels when using the website So, what’s a third-party cookie?.&nbsp; Third-party cookies are ones which operate on a website (let’s use acme-recruitment.com) but the domain which operates the cookie is entirely different.&nbsp; Example: A user visits your recruitment website. As the page loads, a script is run and throught the planting of a first-party cookie, behaviour is tracked. At the same time, a third party cookie from ads.adnetwork.com also starts tracking the user's behaviour, as the website has allowed this to happen. This third-party cookie stays with the user over the rest of the internet.&nbsp; Other websites on the internet then have adspace available (designed space around the web page, or inline with the text). So when the user visits a news site, such as the Guardian, an ad for acme-recruiting.com appears on the screen for the user. What’s happened here is that that third-party cookie was being placed by an ad network and then tracking that user around the internet, outside of the website they originally visited. This example is referred to as retargeting and is really common.&nbsp; So, what’s the problem?&nbsp; First party cookies, in general have no problems, although we’ll come back to that later.&nbsp; Third-party cookies, however, create a huge amount of mistrust for websites. Users are becoming increasingly concerned about their data and how advertisers &amp; big tech companies are using their data. Third-party cookies can essentially track all user behaviour (they don’t track key clicks, so they aren’t a risk to passwords) online, so all websites visited and the pages within those websites that the user has viewed. This allows advertisers to monetise users without them even knowing about it, effectively selling your ‘profile’ to the highest bidder without you knowing.&nbsp;&nbsp; Tech companies like Apple have also in the past used these types of cookies to share data between the apps you use on your phone. This means that advertisers can target ads at you for a new fitness app because you’ve been hitting the fast food delivery apps too hard. You don’t know this is happening, but it is and it’s big business.&nbsp; It’s this type of malicious and shady dealings that’s seeing tech companies move away from third-party cookie tracking.&nbsp; Google are taking a stand Google have announced that in 2023, they will block third-party cookies from Chrome, the worlds most commonly used web browser.&nbsp; This is significant because Google themselves rely heavily on third-party cookies for their double click network (Google Adwords/Retargetting).&nbsp; As of yet, there’s no official replacement for them, but Google have been clear that they are looking to innovate, rather than circumnavigate the issues. What does it mean for recruitment marketing? If you advertise, third-party cookie data allows you to learn a lot about your websites visitors. You can find out all of the websites they visit (including oyur competitors), jobs they may have viewed on other sites and interests they have. This can also be used for client data also, so it’s clearly valuable information to have on your website visitors.&nbsp; When you have this data, you can create ad retargetting lists to send to your visitors, or other visitors who may have never been to your website, but fit the criteria due to tracking.&nbsp; Example: User visits your website and checks out a project manager job. Later that day, they are on the Guardian website and see an add for your project manager job with ‘still interested in applying for this job’ as the creative content. This advert was made possible by third-party cookies, as the user is now on the Guardian and not on the acme-recruitment.com website.&nbsp; If you don’t do any of this and you want simple tracking, then you might not feel the heat. If you like and collect more information on your users, then you will be impacted heavily.&nbsp; LinkedIn I thought it relevant to include LinkedIn within it’s own section here, and will likely expand on this in the future.&nbsp; LinkedIn use third-party cookies quite aggressively. They use it for ad tracking and behavioural tracking and it’s common to see third party LinkedIn cookie tracking on recruitment websites.&nbsp; This will end come 2023, which leaves a lot of questions around how LinkedIn will allow recruiters to remarket to candidates through their platform.&nbsp; It’s not just candidates visiting your own website that will be hit by the change to cookies, but those that are on LinkedIn and see your content (jobs/profiles/articles etc) on that platform. LinkedIn publish their cookie table publicly, and their advertising cookie section is extensive to say the least! In practice this means less visibility of ads for candidates around the internet and potentially less ‘eyes’ on your brand.&nbsp;

What recruitment marketers need to know about third party cookies

In an ideal world, the use of forms on websites would be limited, or in truth, nonexistent. With the growth of chatbots &amp; conversation-based conversion tools, the next few years should start to see a move away from the traditional web form that we’ve all become accustomed to.&nbsp; However, the reality is that forms are still a crucial method in the conversion process of any web business, and as such the optimisation of them is vital to your business’ performance online.&nbsp; According to Wordstream, B2B landing pages convert ar around 2.4% with the top 10% converting at over 11.5%. This triggers the question, what are the best websites doing to create such a large gap? Analysing your problem The first step to solving the problem is to identify where the problem exists. To do this, start to visualise the flow of users on your website and make a note of the conversion points (where the forms ‘live’ in the process). Then, follow on from a completed form to where the enquiry (MQL/SQL/CQL or whatever term works for you) goes and then finally what the conversion rate is.&nbsp; As an example, I’d recommend drawing a funnel of Landing Page &gt; Form &gt; Sales Contact &gt; Conversion. Where possible, give names to the individual landing pages and forms. Micro-level management is fine here as the same form might work better on different landing pages.&nbsp; By baselining the process, you will now start to see where things are going wrong/right. I’d begin by looking at the number of qualified candidates/clients versus those that aren’t of good quality and are being qualified out as a barometer of success.&nbsp; Problem: Users aren’t completing my formsSometimes, people just don’t like filling in forms. Depending on the job you are hiring for, you need to consider offering other options than just a simple web form in order to capture the application.&nbsp; Consider the length of the form and the information you are asking for also. Do you really need to ask the questions you’re asking, or would a simpler form to capture data, with more complex questions later in the process help to increase conversions?&nbsp; I would consider using chatbots, live chat or easily displaying telephone numbers on job posts. By mixing up the variety of contact methods, you’re likely to increase conversions from candidates/clients you didn’t even know about.&nbsp; Problem: The quality of my applicants/clients isn’t rightUnqualified clients and a high volume of candidates you can’t place are the enemies of the CRM system. When your user is ‘in the funnel’ i.e. on your job listing or form completion page (I’ll include the contact us page here too) you need to make sure you’re taking the right steps to qualify in/out to improve the performance the further down the funnel you get.&nbsp; If we have the ideal candidate or client hitting our websites we want them to speak with sales immediately. You’ve probably walked into a car showroom at some point. The first thing you see is the stock of cars, sales messaging, and pricing. This is all seeking to qualify the right buyers. As soon as you show interest, a sales rep walks straight over, introduces themselves, and starts to further qualify you. This is the experience we want to provide digitally. Solutions: By personalising website experiences based on user behaviour, ad tracking, and other personalised messaging, we can deliver higher qualified leads to our sales teams that in turn increase our conversion rates. The goal here is to qualify out as much as you qualify in. The best salespeople do this without thinking about it and your website as an extension of your sales function should be no different.&nbsp; Problem: I can’t get hold of candidates/clients after they fill in formsIt’s a well-trodden path that the faster we get back to our prospects, the better chance we have of closing/placing them.&nbsp; Often, systems aren’t correctly hooked up in order to route the right lead to the right person. Ask yourself this; what happens if a client sends a job spec to my agency? Who picks it up? How quickly will we respond?&nbsp; The likelihood is that you have a lag between marketing (generation) and sales (closing) activities in your business, which is normal but entirely preventable. Solutions: To solve the issue, we need to make sure we have a few simple steps in place. Firstly, does the form have an email that goes to a ‘live’ and ‘monitored’ mailbox? If yes, what’s the turnaround time on this, and who (you need to give a name!) will get back to the customer? If you want to get really smart here, bring in automation. When synced with your Sourceflow websites forms/landing pages, Herefish by Bullhorn can automate a response to the customer to trigger an email. This email could contain a link to calendly to book in a call or contain other information that will assist and qualify the sales prospect.&nbsp; There’s a lot of scope for combining website marketing tools with CRM automation so I’d advise mapping your journey first and then working with your technology providers to improve the experience.&nbsp; ConclusionAs we can see, forms play a crucial role in the performance of your business. Try implementing some of the steps above, as well as looking at the actual forms themselves to make sure they are fit for purpose. Do they work on mobile/tablet? Do they integrate with your CRM and other systems?&nbsp; If you need help understanding how to get more from your website's performance, get in touch with us and we’d love to talk about how we deliver a high-performance culture as standard.

Your website conversion forms aren't working

Content platforms have been going through a change for a number of years. Traditionally, the concept of a CMS involves a platform where front end (visual design) and back end (content management system) are one in the same. This means that design &amp; user interface, URL structures, content delivery, page building, form styling and all other aspects of the ‘management’ of the website are entirely linked together.&nbsp; Whilst this seems like a reasonable solution, the issues that this has created for website managers has been getting worse and worse. The issue lies in the fact that these CMS systems are what’s referred to as ‘Opinionated’. What is an opinionated web framework? Framework: a basic structure underlying a system, concept, or text. Web frameworks make predefined and structured decisions around the architecture, conventions and overall format of the platform that they support. You can think of a framework as set of clearly defined rules around how a system should behave and be applied.&nbsp; Frameworks are helpful to developers as it speeds up the work that they do as they can re use code that has previously been written and follow the best paths for that platform in terms of decision making.&nbsp; Open source technologies such as Wordpress &amp; Drupal a great examples of this. So many developers use these Opinionated platforms because the speed to build simple websites is high and the codebase is consistent.&nbsp; Where the problems start The issue with these technologies, however, starts to rear its head due to the implicit simplicity of the platforms themselves. Even when two CMS’ are developed in the same language, they can hugely vary in how they are applied due to how well trodden the path is (how many websites have been built on that platform). This is why we refer to these platforms as being ‘Opinionated’. The framework developers &amp; architects build a simple path to make development easier for the mass development market (one of the reasons why Wordpress is so popular). This is great, except for the fact that developers then must follow specific assumptions in the framework. If your needs match the intended purpose of the framework i.e. ‘I would like to set up a blog, Wordpress is blog platform = match’, then the platform matches its intended use.&nbsp; When you begin to move away from the intended application of a framework, they become intentionally difficult to violate.&nbsp; In practice, the problems start to range from a lack of easy extensions in one particular area (for example job search, candidate profiles) etc.&nbsp; When choosing an opinionated framework, you need to think of it more as a business decision, rather than a marketing decision. If you are running a business that wants to grow or take advantage of a constantly evolving set of product tools, then moving away from an opinionated framework is the best way to go. If you are happy staying still (or moving very slowly as a business), then choosing an Opinionated framework is the right choice. The rise of Application Frameworks &amp; Headless CMS’ As more and more companies (and in turn developers) realised that Wordpress et al have limitations in terms of their structure, it became clear that a new approach was required.&nbsp; The solution was to look at more sophisticated frameworks such as React, an unopinionated framework. React is fast, highly customisable, scalable and simple to make changes to making it perfect to compliment business who want purpose built products for their short, medium and long term plans. Facebook turned to React to build their entire front end framework for some of the reasons mentioned above and since then millions of websites have been delivered using the ReactJS framework.&nbsp; Headless CMS’ are relatively new but highly powerful and now used by the biggest organisations in the world.&nbsp; The concept of Headless CMS’ is simple; they aren’t opinionated. The content and User Interface (Design) are decoupled, meaning an incredibly high level of flexibility coupled with high performance (speed/load times).&nbsp; Conclusion Systems such as Wordpress are beginning to be treated as ‘legacy’ due to the evolution of Headless CMS’ built on frameworks like React.&nbsp; If you’ve been on an Open Source CMS, the chances are you’ve struggled with some of the issues detailed in this blog. We’ve worked with thousands of Recruitment Agencies and their Open Source web CMS platforms all struggle from the same issues due to high levels of conformity to rules. Usually the initially build process for the website is straight forward and then additional features and products/tools freeze due to a lack of flexibility. Moving from opinionated CMS’ and technology may be the missing ingredient in your marketing strategy when it comes to creating a hub for your content and jobs.&nbsp;

Opinionated frameworks are holding back your marketing growth

Introduction2022 brings with it the opportunity to finally establish new design principles based upon the upheaval and step change of the past 20 months. Recruitment websites have largely become formulaic, however, with the increase in competition, shortage of candidates and striving to differentiate, the move to custom design (and away from templates) will be a key trend moving forward, especially for agencies looking to lead the industry. I’ve detailed 7 predictions on the types of design trends we will see in 2022 below but note that these are not exclusive and I’m sure we will start to finally see agencies pushing the bounds of design creativity in the next 12 months. Large typography on clean hero images A trend that became increasingly popular over the last few years was bold, animated or video filled hero images at the top of websites. This trend saw smaller image overlay text and typography that tried to complement the often overbearing imagery or video being used on website. The hero image is the first image (or area, specifically) that a user typically sees when visiting a website. Specifically, hero images are the top area of the homepage of a website and therefore takes up a material amount of the users ‘gaze’ attention, somewhere in the region of 45-50% of the overall scroll time of a homepage. A study revealed that web users only take 50 milliseconds or 0.05 of a second to form an impression of a website, so the content of the hero image section is crucial to engaging and ultimately converting as user. As recruitment businesses struggle to differentiate and engage digitally with candidates and clients, simplifying the hero area and removing clutter will become an effective way to increase the time-to-message with users. Rejection of minimalism At the risk of being counterintuitive to the first point, I expect to see the ‘super clean’ minimalist website phase out in 2022. Everyone wants a clean website. Over the thousands of recruitment websites I personally have been involved in, nobody has ever requested a cluttered, confusing website, full of text, there’s always time though... Minimalism has led to an abundance of uniform, consistent, and frankly bland websites. There’s nothing wrong with being clean, but when the trend is to copy what everyone else is doing, standing out becomes almost impossible. Bold, vibrant colours with great use of DIY imagery could be big in 2022, simply for the fact that it will help to create a memorable website experience for users. I’d consider looking at ‘Memphis Design’ styles from the 1980’s (think Miami Vice) and potentially the Brutalist design movement from the ‘50’s, ‘60’s &amp; ‘70s as a starting point for design inspiration. Location based design focus Since March 2020, we’ve all spent a lot more time at home. As the world is (hopefully) reopening, travel is still a commodity and most of us are still spending a huge amount of our time in the area we live in. I’d expect to see websites focusing on this way of life in 2022. Recruitment brands with a single base in a city should be looking to capitalise on this location expertise by incorporating the heart and soul of where they operate into their designs. If you’re based in Liverpool for example, there’s a raft of design inspiration from the Beatles, the world famous waterfront and the world of sport to take advantage and add into the mix of your website design. Cityscapes might not be everyone's taste, so get creative with different elements. If you’re a national brand with local offices, structure the website to serve up local office pages that speak to the users in those regions. It might be hard to do this on the homepage, so think big (and spherical, websites are three dimensional and so is your marketing) and build a website that drives local content to local people. A word of caution. If you recruit nationally but have a single office, tone down the location focus. You want to give a sense of your brand personality and tone, rather than appear geographically ‘locked’ ScrollyTelling ScrollTelling (a real word that unfortunately I didn’t make up) is becoming more and more popular and I personally haven’t seen it used in recruitment websites yet. Essentially it's the practice of positioning a piece of content using text, imagery, animation effects, video &amp; audio in combination to make it more engaging than simply text or a downloadable document. One of my favourite examples is how the BBC use ScrollyTelling to present complex stories on their website. For example this article about the gender pay gap is beautifully presented, making an article with 15,000 data points easily engageable and visual. In recruitment, I see a lot of reports, white papers, articles, salary surveys etc that are still presented in PDF format, behind download walls. I see this as something that will become more antiquated with the speed in animation enhancements. Imagine a salary survey that you input your data into and are then returned with a specific landing page that as you scroll, presents the data through animation, has video of your team discussing the specific results and perhaps presents jobs you are recruiting for that match the type of job that’s being looked at. Dynamic, personal content experiences Websites are far more than just static objects. I’d expect to see 2022’s website trends deliver a much more one-to-one connected experience for users. Chatbots and conversational tools for example should start to see more traction this year and how they are served up through the website should start to change. Popups in the corner of the screen might not be cutting it for you (or for anyone), but how about taking over part of the screen on a job listing to create a direct communication channel on page between candidate and recruiter? This type of personalised experience will become the backbone of ‘The Metaverse’ that we will see more of this year and will separate value add businesses from the rest of the field. Serving up content also doesn’t need to be static, job listings should be easily attached to relevant blogs or articles on a website and likewise, content from the website should be served up to candidates and clients via email/dashboards. One of the big trends I’d expect to see more of in 2022 is how content can provide a connected experience. For example, WhatsApp hasn’t been capitalised on in recruitment to delivery content, jobs and as a data collection method, despite having 40.23 million users in the UK. This untapped content communication channel can be a game changer for recruiters and their websites. Gender Neutral, Safe Space DesignGender Neutral DesignStereotypes in design are often overlooked. Often oil and gas websites will include entirely male imagery, healthcare websites will be all female and so on. Run an audit of the industry you work in and the website imagery you use to see if you’ve fallen into a bias trap of presuming that all rig workers are men and all nurses are women. Forms fields should focus on using a variety of pronoun options (or remove this all together) and content should avoid he/she and opt for they.Safe Space DesignThe last couple of years have left people overwhelmed. We’re at the start of a new period of engagement and as a result are starting to see design trends focusing on making users feel safe. This digital design trend is largely mirroring physical office world, where office environments are changing, moving from traditional rows of desks, to collaborative spaces aimed at getting staff back in to the office, reducing stress and making the work environment more comfortable. How? Imagery such as outdoor spaces or homes are a great way of giving the feeling of safety. Psychologically this gives users the feeling of safety both outside and at home. With the change in working from home vs office, showing both styles of design will help to appeal to users. You want your website to feel warm and spacious, so ditch the stock imagery once and for all.Page Speed Focus According to Google, 53% of visitors to a website say they will leave it if it takes longer than three seconds to load, so designing with page load speeds in mind is vital. Image optimisation or off page loading are some technical considerations that can be made to improve your page load speeds but things like font choices (and the number of fonts used) as well as making sure the platform you use doesn’t have too many plugins are also key. The Google Core Web Vitals update was released in August 2021 and had a big focus on the design layout and speed components of your website which will directly impact how well your website will perform on Google. I can see designers working far more closely in 2022 with their front end development teams and platform engineering teams to ensure that whatever is being creatively created is in tune with best practice for speed optimisation. This will lead undoubtedly to design changes and considerations made to image compression such as moving to WebP.

ROI - 7 website design trends for 2022

What is ROIReturn on investment (ROI) is used to evaluate the profitability of an advertising channel or revenue generating. ROI is a great way of measuring the value and size of an activity, relative to the cost of it. How is ROI measured?The formula for calculating ROI (for revenue) is: Return / cost expressed as a ratio Example: Candidate placement: £5,000 / Cost of advertising: £350£5,000 / £350 = £14.20 / 1 (or £14.20 for every £1 spent). Attribution modellingAttribution Modelling (AM) and ROI are closely linked. AM involves creating rules that give credit for sales and their conversion paths or touchpoints. For example, you may have a path that shows candidates that apply for jobs on Indeed, hit the website and then apply for a job. This will apply a conversion % to Indeed candidates against the backdrop of all candidate applications. By mapping out all of your conversion sources by channel i.e. job sites, your own website etc you can build a picture of where you get your candidate/consultant applications or indeed your clients from. When you combine your attribution model with revenue data, you get a complete end to end picture of ROI. Why is ROI measurement important in recruitment?Data is everything in recruitment &amp; Recruitment agencies have a lot of it. By measuring ROI correctly, agencies can<ul><li>See which sources provide the greatest return for the money spent</li><li>See which sources don’t return highly</li><li>See which sources return negatively (i.e. are losing money)</li><li>Trial new sources with confidence</li><li>Generate better candidates that are more likely to place</li></ul> And so on. In essence, ROI, AM and source tracking are essential for agencies focused on spending money smartly and growing efficiently. So why aren’t recruiters tracking ROI?Simply put, the data that agencies collect isn’t currently ‘translated’ into meaningful data. To accurately measure ROI requires aggregating multiple data sources and then applying logic over the top that makes the data readable. Integration, or specifically the lack of integration, between systems is also another key reason why agencies struggle to accurately measure ROI. Multiposters, Job boards, websites, social, CRM &amp; finance packages are examples all systems that need to talk to each other in order to get a full picture of performance. SourceFlow SourceFlow is built to monitor sources from job posting, through websites/multiposters etc back into the CRM. The software then follows through to placement (or not) and then gives a performance overview of the different sources, presented as an ROI. By tracking everything, we can show you (by source) which channels are performing the best for your agency so you can make genuine, non-emotional budgeting decisions.

ROI - The key to success in recruitment marketing

Partnerships are everything in the quest for growthI’ve been fortunate enough to have worked on thousands of website projects over the years. One thing that I've learnt over the years is that partnering with your clients rather than acting is a supplier is the number one way to increase growth potential.One of the founding principles of Sourceflow is to provide an exceptional customer experience and the quest to continually improve how our clients feel about working with us. As a result of this we don't charge any additional fees for customer success, for time spent with Customer Success Managers or indeed any other customer success related activities.What this means is that we encourage our clients to work continually with our customer success team to enhance the proposition that we provide and to continually grow together.For some companies the approach of charging for customer success might work and I can see why you would, especially at scale. Larger companies may feel the need to charge for customer success due to the struggle they have with balancing profits, resources and customer demand volume. It's my belief (and experience) however that even at scale, not charging for ‘CS’ is possible (and generally the right thing to do) to encourage customers to work closer and closer with their partner.I'm aware there’s a fine line between service and over-service and I think if you have great relationships with customers fair usage policy (as an unwritten rule) should apply.The name ‘Customer Success’ in itself is focused on the outcome; success. So why charge for this when platform fee’s &amp; service cover the costs and profits of a SaaS business?

Why service shouldn’t be an additional cost

SourceFlow - ‘The Recruitment Marketing Platform’ - is attending the Recruitment Agency Expo at Olympia London. Described as the ‘The UK’s biggest event for recruitment agency leaders’ the event showcases the best and brightest in technology, marketing, operations, back office and HR solutions for the recruitment industry. SourceFlow’s product vision is to be part of a deeply integrated solution with other tech providers in the recruitment space. Integrations save consultants time and company’s money. SourceFlow will work with marketplace partners to provide world-class integrations that provide fast, secure application data into leading CRMs and allow jobs to be posted directly to websites and job boards. The product roadmap for integration is an exciting one and the Recruitment Agency Expo at Olympia London provides a fantastic opportunity to meet with the partners of the future. SourceFlow Director Alec Middleton commented; We’re excited to attend this first major event to talk to partners and existing customers as we launch the SourceFlow brand into the UK marketplace The event is providing us with a great opportunity to meet with the industry leading companies such as Bullhorn, Broadbean, Idibu, Logic Melon and Odro (amongst others). The Recruitment Technology space is buoyant with innovation. Our product will be part of an integrated solution that provides the leading candidate experience for job seekers using recruiter websites. Events like this provide us with a great opportunity to build partnerships that will form the basis of our integration strategy, as well as helping us better understand our customer requirements and the rec tech landscape. If you want to meet us for a coffee to discuss partnership opportunities, please contact Alec Middleton on 0333 006 7705. To understand more about SourceFlow visit www.sourceflow.co.uk For more information on the Recruitment Agency Expo at Olympia in London visithttps://recruitmentagencyexpo.com/london/

Making new friends at the Recruitment Agency Expo

Let's start with much used problem statement - “My website doesn't get me any business”The recruitment agency market is a busy place. There are over 50,000 recruitment agencies in the UK, all fighting for the best candidates, clients and consultants. If you’re going to have a chance of standing out, you need to make a statement.Your website is not THE answer to attracting great candidates, clients and consultants. You need a good marketing budget and a great marketing team to get to page 1 of Google. Also 9 times out of 10 people arrive at your website through other referral sources such as job boards, social media and word of mouth.But your website is critical to the conversion process. Once a visitor comes to your site (candidate, client or consultant) they start to judge you very very quickly. In less than half a second, a visitor to your website makes a judgement on whether they’ll stay. It’s an incredibly short amount of time and it’s based almost entirely on the visual impression your website starts to make as it renders on their screen.And it's there - 24/7/365 If you want to create a good impression then you need to look brilliant. “So where do I start?” Building a website is hard. It relies on pulling together information from all areas of your business. The project often has many stakeholders and when it goes live it’s highly visible… so you don’t want to mess it up! Above anything else, a great website understands what a visitor wants. In a recruitment website this is often a candidate (to place), a client (to work with) and a consultant (to work for you). If you start by addressing your visitor in a way that is attractive to them then you’re off to a good start. For example; For a client, tell them about;The sectors you’re amazing in The reasons why you’re betterThe reasons they should trust you For a candidate, tell them about;Your amazing list of active vacancies Your expertise in helping other candidates The reasons they should trust you For a consultant, tell them aboutYour incredible company culturePerks of working for you The reasons they should trust you “So I know why I'm awesome… what next?” You then need to consider how you’re going to present this information. In words? Images? Graphics? Infographics? Video? Audio? Animation? Do a post-it-note exercise to think about how you’re going to arrange the content on your pages. This will start to form the basis of your navigation and offer structure to the important landing pages for your candidates, clients and consultants. “But my content doesn’t fit into this pre-designed template I’ve bought?” SHOCKER! This is where pre-designed, pre-built templates and themes fall down. You’re starting to re-write your content to fill the space. You’re starting to cut out the things you like. You’re having to cut out entire pages because there isn't a template in the theme that you’ve bought. That brand you spent so much time working on looks dreadful on the page. You're trying to find stock images of people that don’t work in your business just because there is a place for a picture. And that great video you produced that shows your company off doesn't even have a place. Your vision for your website is dwindling away. It doesn't feel like you. It feels very same same. “So design templates are bad?” Definitely not. Everything has its place. If you need a quick and dirty website design OR if you don't really care about the conversion process then go for it. A template can look pretty and perform its duty. BUT it definitely will compromise your wow factor, your identity and your vision. With a template; It's not been designed for your customerIt’s not been designed to work with your brand Your content might not all have a placeIt cannot be modified to your exact requirements Your website is the same as someone else'sYour biggest differentiator - your people - are not being well representedYour identity is compromised “So what should I do?” Be brave and make a statement. Take some time to do the job properly. Work with a company that cares about you and what makes you unique. Address your audience properly. Answer their questions and build trust. Help them to pick up the phone, fill in the form or apply for that job. Be the brand that stands for something that visitors will engage with and fall in love with. Do everything you can to help your visitors convert. Right now, you have now idea how many opportunities you're missing. SourceFlow only offers custom design for their websites. They’re the experts and they’re here to help. For more information contact us on 0333 006 7705.

Differentiation - The importance of custom design

So, you have a job search on your recruitment website. It is an essential part of your web presence, allowing candidates to browse the job positions you are hiring for. It needs to allow users to quickly find job listings that interest them, and this requires a combination of simple to use filters and clear to understand results.Simple to use filters seems like a no-brainer, right? Your job search has an input for keywords, plus some selectable categories the user can choose from. Everything the user would need to start a search.But do these tools you have provided the user actually suit their needs? Are the categories using your phrasing, which may be industry specific? Great for veterans, not so good for those starting out, or interested in a career change.&nbsp;Does the keyword search only match words in the job description exactly? Would 'HR' match 'Human Resources'? If you have a minimum search term length to stop matching on short words such as 'to' or 'as', you now cannot even search for 'HR'.But does your search handle jargon? Acronyms? Numbers? As a software engineer I am all too familiar with searching for the programming language 'C++', only to have the '++' ignored and the results only show jobs for the 'C' language (which are not the same!!). Does 'Finance Director' also match against 'Junior Finance Analyst'? How many results in how many industries does including the word 'manager' cause?Location is another difficult topic. Place names are not unique, and context is very important for choosing the right place. There are over 25 places around the globe called 'London'. It may seem obvious to assume the user means the capital of the UK, but what if that user was in Ontario, Canada? Add on to this lack of uniqueness with colloquial names for places, such as 'West End', and it is very easy for the computer to pick the wrong place.Users may want to search by postal code, but this follows a different pattern in every country. Are you sure your search will continue to work if your business expands overseas?A user is not going to fight your job search. If they can't get the results they want, they will leave and try elsewhere. Configuring search tools is hard - there is a reason why there are only a handful of major search engines. A solution that works for a site with 20 jobs is likely to fail with 10,000 jobs.As industry professionals with years of recruitment website experience, we have experienced all of the above problems. Solutions that resolve an issue for one customer introduce issues for another. A website that has worked perfectly for years suddenly fails to perform when they expand to new industries.&nbsp;Sourceflow uses Google's Cloud Talent platform to power our job search. It handles acronyms and spelling mistakes, seniority levels and industry jargon. Location matching is provided by Google Maps.&nbsp;Every issue listed above is solved by a Sourceflow recruitment website.

News & advice

Market leading insights.