Recruitment health check — see how you look to the people you want to hire
The recruitment health check is a free assessment of how your business looks to a candidate: whether they can find you at all, what your careers page tells them, how your adverts read, where your pay sits against the employers hiring the same people nearby, and what somebody finds when they look you up. It scores only what it can measure, out of 100, and names what it could not reach rather than counting it against you.
No account. Nothing to install. Every finding appears before we ask you for anything.
What the check looks at
Six key points, the same six our Talent Partner diagnosis is built on. Five are scored here from what anyone can see outside your business; the sixth, market mapping, needs candidate data and is built in that diagnosis.
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1
Market standing
How you look as an employer next to the firms hiring the same people: whether your site carries proof from anyone other than you, whether it points a candidate to any employee review of you, whether anyone who works for you is quoted, and whether your careers page gives reasons to join rather than duties. We do not read your star rating — we hold no licensed review feed, so we never assert one.
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2
Salary and package
What you pay against the live local band for the same role, read from adverts running right now rather than a salary survey, and whether your adverts state the pay at all.
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3
Competitor analysis
The advertisers competing for the same people near you, named, with what they have said they are offering and how long their adverts have been running.
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4
Market mapping
Where the people you need work today, and how many are within reach of you. That needs candidate data rather than your website, so it is built in the Talent Partner diagnosis and scores nothing here.
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5
Online presence and footprint
What a candidate finds when they look you up: whether search engines and AI assistants can reach and read you, whether you have a careers page and your menu leads to it, whether your roles can appear in Google's jobs results, and whether your site links to your LinkedIn company page and social profiles.
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6
Adverts and process
How often a role is re-advertised, how long adverts run, how they read against a rubric we print for you, how much effort it takes to apply, and whether there is a person to ask.
Attracting candidates is the hard part now, and it is getting harder
These are not our figures. They come from the CIPD's annual survey of UK employers — the same report we cite for cost per hire elsewhere on this site.
- 64%
of UK organisations that tried to fill a vacancy had difficulty attracting candidates.
- 69%
say competition for well-qualified talent increased over the last year.
- 41%
had a new recruit resign inside their first 12 weeks — the price of somebody joining without a clear picture of what they were joining.
Source: CIPD Resourcing and talent planning report 2024, checked 2026-09-08.
Questions people ask about the check
Is the recruitment health check really free?
Yes. The first set of findings runs straight away and asks you for nothing at all. The remaining part puts questions to four AI assistants to see whether you get named, which is slow and costs us money each time it runs, so we ask for your name, your company and a work email before running that half — and then we email you the report. Running a check does not put you on a mailing list. That is the whole of the catch.
Why are we not getting applicants?
Usually it is not one thing. The common pattern is that candidates cannot find you, and the ones who do find a page that lists duties rather than reasons, with no pay stated and no obvious way to ask a question. Each of those is measurable from outside your business, which is what this check does.
Do you apply for our jobs to test us?
No. We never submit an application, real or invented. That means response time is not something we measure, and we say so rather than estimating it. Anything outside what we can see from your public pages and live advert data is named as such and scores nothing either way.
Do you check our reviews?
We check what a candidate finds when they look you up: whether your site carries proof from a customer, whether it points anywhere independent for a second opinion, and whether anyone who works for you is quoted. We do not read or report your star rating — we hold no licensed review feed, and a rating we have not read is not one we will put a number on.
What are the six key points?
Market standing, salary and package, competitor analysis, market mapping, online presence and footprint, and adverts and process. They are the same six our Talent Partner diagnosis is built on. This free check scores five of them from what can be seen outside your business; market mapping needs candidate data, so it is built in that diagnosis instead.
Why do you need the role and the town?
They are what let us price you against the market. With them we read the live band for that role within your area, count how many other employers are advertising it right now, and put your trade and your town to the AI assistants candidates ask. Two of the six key points, salary and package and competitor analysis, depend on them, and they are the two most employers have never seen.
Why do you ask what we are paying?
Because it is the first thing a candidate compares, and without it we have nothing of yours to hold against the local band. Most employers' own adverts do not state pay, so this is usually the only way the comparison can run at all. Give us a figure or a range and we will show you, by name, which of the employers advertising the same role near you are offering more.
Will this tell me where I rank on Google?
No. We hold no search-ranking data, so we make no claim about your position in Google. We measure whether your pages can be indexed and read at all, and whether AI assistants can reach them — which is the part you control.
What happens to the website you give us?
We crawl a handful of public pages on it, politely and honouring your robots.txt, and read live job advert data for your roles. We store the result so your report has a link. We do not sell it, and we do not add you to a mailing list for running a check.
What is an attraction problem, as opposed to a hiring problem?
A hiring problem is not enough of the right people applying. An attraction problem is the cause underneath it: the people you want either never see you, or see you and are not persuaded. Paying an agency solves the first for one role at a time. Fixing attraction changes every role you advertise afterwards.
Three more free tools, no account on any of them
This check looks at how you appear to the people you are trying to hire. Two others look at the role itself: the salary checker shows the middle half of what employers are advertising for the same job title where you are hiring, read from live adverts rather than last year's survey, and the cost of vacancy calculator works out what an unfilled role costs while it stays open, with every step of the sum shown. If the advert itself is the problem, the job advert generator writes one for you.
Want to go through your results with someone?
We will walk through what we would change first, what it takes, and what it looks like when it is working — and we will look at your careers page with you while we are on. Fifteen minutes, at the soonest slot that suits.
We crawl a handful of public pages on the address you give us, politely and honouring robots.txt, and read live job advert data. We never apply for your jobs to test you, and we make no claim about your position in Google because we hold no ranking data. Anything we cannot check is reported as unchecked, never counted against you.