Buying Recruitment Websites Tip 2

I am an ex-recruiter/recruitment company owner who embarked, and now I run a recruitment website development company since 2004.

Disclaimer I am severely Dyslexic, and so this post will have spelling and grammar errors, partly because I am severely Dyslexic but mostly because Word, Chrome & Grammarly can't agree on what is correct and what is not, so WTF chance have I got? Either way, the advice here has been validated by some others who know a little bit about websites, recruitment marketing and SEO.

Here is some free advice on the subject based on 18 years and counting of delivering recruitment websites to the most prominent and smallest recruitment firms in all continents of the world, in multiple languages across hundreds of niches or niches of niches.

Lesson 2 - Websites and the ATS vendor

ATS website package: ATS vendors are data managers, and recruitment website vendors are data attractors.

The skills to achieve mastery in either discipline differ, so if you just want "a website" use, the ATS vendors own website site offers. If you want a website that is an attraction tool, use an expert recruitment website builder tech.

ATS API (application programming interface): ATS vendors tell you they have an API, and web vendors can use that API to work with their site. This is true, but they leave out the API's come with some real problems.

Problem 1. If the website vendor has not made a connection to the ATS vendor, an expensive first integration has to be made. This can cost more than the website.

Problem 2. Some ATS vendors let you structure the data the ATS send to the website to suit how the website needs to do its the best work; other don't and so compromise how well a website can work for you.

Problem 3. Some vendors charge extra for their API, a complete rip off if you ask me, and keep that in mind when budgeting for your tech spend. One want £2500 to set it up and £250 a month to run it, that's £550 for year one for a task which would cost maybe £250 to provide you!!!!

ATS Vendor Job Pages: Some ATS vendors want to run your job pages for you, this is great in theory but shite in practice because the jobs are often run on sub-domains owned by the ATS vendor, which are not helping your site gain SEO rankings for your jobs.

Many of these pages also fall woefully short of good optimisation for Google for jobs, and so you lose out there, also. As does your site authority, as it is not your domain being ranked by Google but the ATS vendors subdomain.

Most ATS integration problems are solved by job posting software: Finding advice on connecting websites is a bit of a minefield. Cool, because it is.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel because virtually all ATS vendors have integration with tools like Broadbean, Idibu, Logic Mellon, Wave etc.

Using one of these tools will solve all integration issues and more besides if you need to send jobs to job boards, social media channels and your website and track their response.

Integration warning: While it kills a lot of admin time to have a website take jobs from your ATS and send candidate applications and people who submit CV's back to your ATS, it does mean you get all data in almost all cases, not quality data in.

For example, if you get 100 applications for a job to your email no and delete 80 of them and send a sorry you can't help message, no data storage harms no data storage foul.

However, if you let the API take all 100 applications from your website, you now have 100 records in your ATS and 80 of them you did not want, for which you now need to account for the data under GDPR.

ATS Conclusions: Clearly, you will work with the ATS every day, and you need to work with the one you are most comfortable with so the website tail can't and should not wag the ATS dog. But the website is a job marketing tool, and the ATS is a job storage tool. You need to keep that in mind above all else when thinking about who is best to deliver your website.

Got any questions or need any more advice on how your recruitment website can help? Then connect with me here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/recruitmentwebsitedesign/

 

Darren Revell

Director

Please note I am Dyslexic, and in my form, I am blind to grammar, and sometimes I get my fors and fours, etc. backwards.  I am not stupid – in fact, my IQ and EQ are both quite high.  Please keep that in mind when you read my posts.  Thanks.