AI search by industry
AEO for recruitment and staffing
Recruitment has two distinct audiences asking different questions, and assistants answer them from different sources. Candidate questions go to salary data and employer reviews; client questions go to comparison content and reputation — and the same agency competes in both.
The same agency competes in two different markets
A developer asks what salary to expect for a mid-level role in Berlin. That answer comes from aggregated compensation data, quoted as a range, often almost verbatim from whichever source published real figures.
A hiring manager at the same company asks which agency to use for engineering roles in that market. That answer comes from comparison content, specialism signals and reviews, a completely different set of sources.
Agencies routinely track one of these and assume it covers both. It does not. The candidate side and the client side share almost no sources, no vocabulary and no buying logic, and a blended visibility figure describes neither.
Questions buyers ask
Real prompts from this market, in the words buyers use.
- “what salary should I ask for a mid-level developer role in Berlin”
- “best recruitment agency for finance roles in London”
- “is this company good to work for”
- “how long does it take to fill an engineering role”
- “should I use a recruiter or apply directly”
Sources that decide this category
Where answers in recruitment are assembled from.
Salary data platforms
Compensation questions are answered from aggregated data, and the figures are quoted directly.
Employer review sites
'Is this company good to work for' is answered from review consensus, which agencies cannot control but must understand.
Job boards
Market conditions — what roles exist, what they pay, how long they stay open — are inferred from listing data.
Industry and trade publications
Hiring trend questions draw on sector commentary rather than agency marketing.
What is different here
Two audiences, two prompt sets
Candidate questions and client questions have almost no overlap. Tracking them as one set produces a blended figure that describes neither.
Salary data is quoted verbatim
Compensation figures get lifted directly into answers. An agency publishing genuine, current, well-scoped salary data is providing exactly what assistants need and what most competitors do not.
Specialism beats scale
'Best agency for X' questions favour visible specialists. A generalist agency is hard to name because it matches no constraint particularly well.
Reputation is checkable
Both candidates and clients ask whether an agency is any good, and that is answered from reviews. It is the most direct reputational exposure in this category.
What teams here get wrong
The habits that quietly cost recruitment brands the most visibility.
- One prompt set for two audiences. Candidate and client questions barely overlap, and blending them produces a number that describes neither.
- Recycled salary data. Figures get quoted directly, so publishing real, current, well-scoped numbers is the strongest play available, and republishing a table from elsewhere is the weakest.
- Positioning as a generalist. 'Best agency for X' questions favour visible specialists, because a generalist matches no constraint particularly well.
- Ignoring agency reviews. Both sides ask whether you are any good, and that is answered from platforms rather than from your site.
- Overlooking the employers you represent. Their review profiles surface in answers about the roles you are recruiting for.
Questions
Should we publish salary guides?
It is the strongest single play in this category. Real, current, well-scoped figures get quoted directly, and most competitors publish either nothing or recycled numbers.
How do we compete with the big job boards?
Not on listings. On specialism and on market knowledge — the questions where a niche agency genuinely knows more than an aggregator.
Does employer branding work affect us?
If you place candidates into companies with poor review profiles, those reviews surface in answers about roles you are recruiting for. It is worth knowing what is said about the employers you represent.
Guides that cover this
How Allswap measures this
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