Article: Recruitment
Agency Website Review: Architects Online by NES International
www.architects-online.co.uk
Description
Architectural recruitment website.
Appearance
The most basic of homepage designs ensures attention is drawn to the text displayed and that users do not face unnecessary distractions. The left hand menu clearly highlights user options and even the advertisements are neatly displayed and unobtrusive. Page appearance is co-ordinated throughout.
Navigation
A simple side bar menu presents the navigation options and pages load quickly. The site differs from other recruitment websites in that it does not display a job search facility on its homepage. Perhaps this has been a deliberate decision to make the site different to other recruitment sites but by doing this, users are required to locate the job search themselves. Being the most important function of any recruitment website, the homepage could be a more convenient place for it.
Contents
Job specifications provide brief summaries of roles, with salary and location details. More detailed descriptions are obtained through selecting positions of interest. As this site is aimed at such a specific audience, all positions are relevant to the industry. This significantly reduces the amount of irrelevant information users are presented with throughout.
The salary survey, education, events diary and directory (although not browsable) provide relevant information that you rarely find on other job sites. These offer information that doesn’t necessarily apply exclusively to jobseekers, which means that visitors are likely to be attracted back sooner than they might normally be.
Clients & candidates
The job search section allows candidates to search by job title, job type, salary, location, recruitment company or by using keywords. It also has the option to show newly posted jobs only. However, the search functions can be restrictive, poorly structured and not as easy to use as other sites. Companies and candidates are able to register simply by providing their name
and email address.
Job seekers who do register with the site can:
· Conduct multi-applications to an unlimited number of jobs at one time
· Submit CVs automatically to jobs selected
· Save search criteria for the next visit
· Access a personalised record of applications made
· Receive personalised email alerts
While these advantages are highlighted in the text on the ‘jobs’ page, they might be better positioned above the registration form to encourage people to complete it.
As a subscriber to the site, I believe that a candidate database is currently being developed to create a search facility for employers. I expect this feature to be a useful tool for our business and am looking forward to its arrival. The recent addition of the online vacancy management system has significantly improved the site’s accessibility for all our other architectural recruiters.
Summary
Detail provided in the job descriptions is, as expected within specialised recruitment sites, of a superior level to that of other more general websites, providing job seekers with comprehensive job specifications.
Architects Online is successful in providing recruitment assistance to both the client and the candidate, although client benefits will be enhanced with the introduction of the forthcoming candidate database.
Ease of use 4/5
Features 3/5
Value for money 5/5
Database quality 0/5
Applications quality 2/5
Sophie Wood is an architectural recruitment specialist at technical, engineering, rail and IT recruitment company, NES based in London. She can be contacted on 0208 335 1493
sophie.wood@nes.co.uk
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