About four in five recruitment homepages open the same way: a big banner, a headline and a button. It's quite a trend!
We looked at a large sample of recruitment websites, just over 100 site reviews between how they look and how they're built underneath. They range from small independents to multi-sector firms, with finance and technology well represented.
This is a snapshot of those sites. It can't tell you what brings in more applications or enquiries, but there are some interesting trends.
The look: more alike than you'd think
The banner is only the start of it. 78% of the sites had one. A few other things came up again and again:
- Light and bright. Of the sites where we could read the colour scheme, 85% were light, and 89% had no dark mode at all. Blue was the leading colour family.
- Cards everywhere. 77% used several repeated blocks, usually for jobs, sectors or team members.
- Plain, clean fonts. At least 94% of the sites we could measure used a sans-serif body font (the simple kind with no little tails on the letters).
- Lots of photography. 42% leaned towards images over text.
- Built for phones. Every site was set up to display on a mobile, and 84% adjusted their layout at three or more screen sizes.
There's nothing wrong with any of that, but it does suggest a lot of sites are working from the same template.
Finding the jobs
This is the part we found most interesting. On 53% of sites, the link to jobs wasn't among the first things on the page, so a candidate has to go looking.
Once someone does reach the jobs page, the next question is whether they can narrow it down by location, sector or salary. We didn't measure that, so we won't put a number on it. From what we've seen, it's where a lot of sites either get it right or lose people. A jobs page you can't search or filter is just a long list to scroll through.
The basics
Here's what we checked and what we found:
- A secure connection. That's the padlock next to the web address. Every site we checked has this, and it's something we find frustrating when they don't, as lots of browsers warn visitors away.
- A page title. The words on the browser tab, and the headline of your link in Google.
- A favicon. The tiny logo on the browser tab. 92% had one.
- A sitemap. A list of your pages that you hand to Google so it doesn't miss any. 87% had one.
- A page description. The couple of lines of summary under your link in Google results. 83% had one.
- A jobs page reachable from the homepage. 73% did.
So the technical plumbing is generally being done, The gaps are in what the sites actually say.
Where the gaps are
Salary is still a secret. On 81% of the sites we couldn't find a salary or rate on the vacancies. Candidates are used to seeing it elsewhere, and it's one of the simplest ways to stand out.
Testimonials are thin on the ground. 86% of sites had none we could find. A client or candidate saying something kind about you costs nothing to add.
Not many are writing anything. 68% had no blog or insights section. These can be pretty helpful for SEO.
Headings are a bit of a mess. Headings are the titles and sub-titles within a page. 50% of the sites skipped levels, like jumping from a main title straight to a small sub-heading, and 32% didn't have exactly one main title. Visitors rarely notice, but it makes a page harder for search engines and screen readers to follow.
Shared links often look poor. On 43% of sites, pasting the link into LinkedIn or WhatsApp would give a bare preview with no proper picture or title.
Your website is being read by AI tools too
People increasingly ask an AI tool for an answer instead of typing into Google, which means your website is also being read by software that summarises it. The picture is mixed:
- Many sites tell machines who they are. 78% had the behind-the-scenes labelling (called structured data) that identifies the business.
- Few use specific numbers. Where we could check this, 70% had no concrete figure in their copy, like "placed 400 candidates" or "20 years in the sector". Vague claims are hard for anyone to quote, human or machine.
- Over half haven't published an llms.txt file. 57% hadn't.
An llms.txt file is a short, plain-text summary of your site, written for AI tools to read. Supporters say it's cheap, harmless and a sensible way to point AI towards your best pages. Sceptics say it's still just a proposal, and that the big AI companies haven't confirmed they use it when answering questions. We haven't seen proof either way that it makes a difference to whether you get mentioned.
Our view is that it's worth knowing about and cheap to add, but a clear homepage, a real salary and a number you can stand behind will do more good than a file nobody has proved is read.
What we'd take from it
The technical side is largely sound, and the sites look and read very much alike. The easy wins are in the content. Show the salary, add a testimonial, put a real figure in your headline, and make jobs easy to find and easy to search.
Trends like these are worth a look, but they're food for thought rather than a rulebook. If you're building or rebuilding a site, they're a handy way to see what's normal and where you could do something different. And if you're paying a serious fee for your website, the technical side should already be covered. The padlock, the sitemap, the page titles and descriptions are the basics, and you shouldn't have to chase them. It's fair to ask your developer or agency to check them off, then spend your own time on the parts only you can write: the salaries, the stories and the numbers.