Review: RecruitIreland.com (Verdict: 7 out of 10)  This review of Recruit Ireland was conducted as a secret shopper experience. We approached the site with a "hypothetical" vacancy. The role to be advertised was an Admin/Secretary job for an estate agents office based in Dublin 2 on a salary of €25 to 28K. The job site did not know that this was a review call. See RecruitIreland profile.  Reviewed: September 2007.

The Recruit Ireland website:

Recruit Ireland is a straight-forward and easy to use job board with all of the usual bells and whistles you'd expect from a popular generalist job board. You can search for jobs straight away, but if candidates want the added benefits of online CV, application tracking and jobs-by-email they will need to register. One niggle, which is common to many job boards in Ireland, is the lack of a salary search option in the job search engine. Apart from that the job search is quick.

How Recruit Ireland works:

The call was taken by a very capable and knowledgeable Account Manager. She asked good questions about my job and immediately asked whether I was going to put a salary on the job pointing out that no salary can have a hugely negative impact on job response. She also went onto to encourage me to put the company name on the ad too, pointing out that candidates often prefer to apply to real named companies. These are two good pieces of advice for small employers.

A further nice touch was that when I indicated that I was looking at advertising in October, the Account Manager encouraged me to get the job live on the site by late September which, she claimed, was a very busy time. The cynic might have seen this a sales trick, but I took it as a genuine tip.

What was really encouraging was her honest description of the recruitment market. She said demand for my role was high and that salaries were going up. She indicated that a year ago, my job would have been easily filled but now it would struggle (no matter where I put it). She also described how to get the best out of the site and said that I should check response and, if I am struggling, that I should update the job weekly so it looks fresh. Again, these are all nice tips.

Recruit Ireland user statistics and site demographics

The Unique User figure quoted was 155,355 (which seems to be about right.) The Account Manager said there were 32,000 jobs on the site and that the ratio of employers to recruitment agencies was about 50:50. However, the account manager did indicate that the recruitment agents will have far more jobs than the employers. The job numbers do seem a little high for the number of users.

Recruit Ireland Products

As I had only one ad, the Account Manager outlined that the most appropriate option for me which was the €385 one-month job posting. Via an online account I add the job myself, but the Account Manager did say that she would take a look at what I submitted. She also joked that she would be on the phone giving out to me if I didn't write a good long job description —a nice confidence building touch. She also said that she would keep an eye on response and contact me if things weren't going well.

At the time of writing, the site was also offering a free “HotJob” upgrade. The Recruit Ireland HotJob puts a vacancy at the top of the search results when my particular “keywords” were searched. In this instance, when a candidate searched for admin roles, my job would come back at the top of the list. The usual price for this was €80. With so many jobs on RecruitIreland.com, this might be a wise upgrade.

Also available was a CV database search which could be purchased on its own at €285 for 75 CV downloads. At time of writing the CV database was a relatively new product launch so all of the CV were a maximum of 8 weeks old.

A third product, which had also just been launched, was the combined one month job posting and 1 week of CV downloads at €549 +VAT.

Recruit Ireland — the Pros and Cons

The Pros: A good and easy to use site though our review cannot vouch for the job posting procedure. The account manager seemed very knowledgeable and sincere in her sales pitch, and did make me feel that while the market might be tight, she would do her best to make sure my ad did well. She was also honest in her assessment of the my chances of success by saying that though the job mightn't work online, it was definitely worth a wager with them.

The Cons: I would be a little anxious about the high number of jobs to actual users. I also thought that at €385 the cost was a little high when compared to its competitors. Another niggle was that the site did not allow employer logos on the jobs for the product offered —at €385, this should be a standard. 

Overall Verdict: 7 out of 10.

Our overall impression of Recruit Ireland was positive. The account manager seemed to know what she was talking about and I was particularly impressed with her knowledge of the general recruitment market as well as her honest appraisal of my chances. The product offered was fine and suitable, and the extra free offer was a nice touch too. I still think that the standard job posting is a little overpriced. But then, if it works, it's a bargain. Go to the RecruitIreland whatjobsite profile.

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