Shuter Smith approached Making Websites Better to help create a website for them that would help establish their brand digitally and harness their industry reputation as established recruiters and search specialists.
The brief
Shuter Smith International’s founder Ray Parker wanted a site that would demonstrate their experience and credibility to build trust and give clients and candidates total peace of mind in choosing Shuter Smith to represent them. Shuter Smith understands how important it is for companies to trust the recruiters securing the best candidate on the market whilst candidates want a recruitment partner who has their best interests at heart.
It was important to Shuter Smith that the site could quickly articulate their industry experience, offer and as an independent recruitment company and how they differ from the big national firms.
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Key challenges
A brand new website that needed to build visibility quickly
Competing against competitors and job boards
“Despite the growth in unemployment during the pandemic, 45% of CIPD survey respondents believe that competition for well-qualified talent has increased”^
The solution
A brand new website offers a unique opportunity to dig deep into the company's vision, transforming it into a digital experience that appeals to very different audiences.
From experience, we know it is important to offer emerging businesses the flexibility to adapt their website as they see opportunities or their business model evolves. Time is precious too as a website can offer value behind the scenes to automate tasks and make life easier. Taking time to understand the business as whole, enabled us to make recommendations on how the website could extend its impact beyond simply helping build the brand's visibility online.
We:
Took a holistic approach to create a site structure that leverages their strengths
Reviewed what the site needed to do and what else it could do to support them
Present Shuter Smith front and center to create a personal and authentic experience
Implemented WordPress content management system (CMS) that allowed multiple user access, giving team members the ability to manage content and management to choose access levels
Focused on the user experience (UX) to provide a seamless frictionless experience for clients and candidates in their respective recruiting journey
Made the recruitment process easier for Shuter Smith by automating various data points through the recruiting process from job sharing to candidate management
Implemented a tracking system to manage job ads and enable candidates to automatically upload their CV into the Shuter Smith system via their ATS
Introduced dynamic blog posts to show posts relevant to candidates or businesses recruiting
Added value from MWB
We think it's important for a brand to be consistent at every touch point. We have the added advantage of internal design expertise. Shuter Smith asked us to help with designing:
Print-ready business card design and editable template
8-page brochure in both print ready and web-optimised versions
Social media assets for their company page and personal accounts
We’ve made these flexible for Shuter Smith to easily update them whilst keeping them on brand.
“The number of job vacancies in January to March 2022 rose to a new record of 1,288,000; an increase of 492,400 from the pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level in January to March 2020.”*
The result
The website is now the foundation for Shuter Smith building industry credibility and giving them the place and confidence to accelerate their brand.
Angela Ferreira, Digital Designer, Making Websites Better (MWB)
“Shuter Smith briefed us on their website and using our knowledge and expertise, we’ve been able to see how the website could be designed and help automate other tasks that were essential to the complete recruitment process. We understand designing a website from scratch for your own business can be daunting and we’ve made sure we offered as much support to Shuter Smith as possible, to ensure they got the website they wanted. It has been a great project to work on and we look forward to working with them again as they grow their ambitious brand.”.
Ray Parker, Founder, Shuter Smith