Role
Designer
Timeline
5 Weeks
Team
Solo Project
Deliverables
Website Design, User Flows, Contact System
Project Overview
Strategic Search Partners is a boutique executive recruitment firm that specializes in placing technical and leadership talent within the heating, cooling, energy, and building products industries. The owner has over 30 years of experience in these industries and has made more than 400 successful placements. He needed a professional website to support his business development efforts and make it easier for clients and candidates to get in touch.
The Challenge
How do you create a website that establishes credibility for a one person recruitment operation while making it easy for both employers and job seekers to reach out, all without needing complicated customer management software?
What I Set Out To Do
- Design a professional website that shows off 30 years of industry expertise
- Create separate paths for two different audiences: companies looking for talent and professionals looking for opportunities
- Build a simple way for candidates to submit their resumes via email
- Highlight what makes this firm different: they find people who aren't actively job hunting instead of just posting on job boards
- Show credibility through industry focus, placement numbers, and international experience
- Keep everything simple enough that one person can manage it without technical help
My Approach
I sat down with the business owner to really understand how he works, who he's trying to reach, and what he actually needs from a website. The design focuses on being clear and professional, with obvious paths for employers versus candidates. I kept the technical side minimal on purpose. There's no fancy customer database, just straightforward email submissions that fit right into his existing way of managing contacts through Microsoft tools.
Research and Discovery
Learning the Business
I spent time talking with the firm's owner to understand his business model, who his customers are, and what technical setup would work for him. This conversation taught me a lot about how executive recruitment actually works in specialized industries and what makes a solo operation successful.
How the Business Works
Strategic Search Partners operates in a specific niche: finding executives and technical professionals for companies in heating, cooling, energy, building automation, and related industries. The firm works with three types of organizations: manufacturers, independent sales representatives, and distributors. What sets this recruiter apart is that 90% of placements come from passive candidates, meaning people who aren't actively looking for jobs but are open to the right opportunity.
What Employers Need
- Quick understanding of what industries the firm specializes in
- Easy way to get in touch about hiring needs
- Confidence that the recruiter knows their industry inside and out
- Understanding of how passive candidate sourcing works
- Simple way to schedule a call
What Candidates Need
- Simple resume submission without filling out endless forms
- Clear picture of what roles and industries the firm covers
- Quick way to get on the recruiter's radar for future opportunities
- Ability to attach their resume as a PDF or Word document
- Direct contact information if they want to follow up
Technical Constraints
The owner doesn't use Salesforce or any traditional customer management software. Instead, he has a system built around Microsoft tools with contacts, Word documents, and organized folders backed up in multiple places. This meant the website needed to send inquiries straight to his email rather than connect to some third party platform. Whatever I built had to be simple enough for one person to maintain over the long run.
Key Insight: Quality Over Quantity
Unlike recruitment websites that need tons of traffic and form submissions, this site is primarily a business development tool. The owner already works with most of the major players in his industry. The website exists mainly to capture new companies from Asia, Europe, or emerging markets who find the firm through online searches. Success means attracting the right leads, not maximizing website visits.
Looking at Competitors
I looked at several other executive recruitment websites in similar specialized industries. Most of them suffered from generic corporate templates, no personality, and unclear explanations of what made them different from job boards or big staffing agencies. This was an opportunity to make Strategic Search Partners stand out by focusing on passive candidate sourcing and deep industry knowledge.
Who Uses This Site
Two main types of people would visit:
- The hiring executive is typically a VP or executive at a heating, cooling, or building products company. They're frustrated with unqualified applicants from job postings and need someone who can proactively find talented people working at competitors.
- The passive candidate is someone currently employed as a sales engineer, regional manager, or executive. They're not actively job hunting but want to stay on the radar for the right opportunity when it comes along.
Design Process
Site Structure and User Flows
Based on what I learned from the owner, I designed a multi page structure with two distinct paths depending on who's visiting:
- The homepage establishes credibility right away with the firm's specialization, 30 years of experience, industry focus, the founder's background including his MBA and industry experience, and direct contact information
- The employers page explains services in detail, the types of roles placed from executives down to individual contributors, how passive candidate sourcing works, and expertise across manufacturers, sales reps, and distributors
- The candidates page has a simple form for name, email, phone, and resume attachment that sends everything straight to the owner's inbox
- The about page covers the founder's background, company history, and the relationship focused approach that sets boutique recruiting apart
- Specialty pages for Building Automation Systems, Manufacturers, Independent Representatives, and Energy and Controls give tailored content for different market segments
Design Principles
The design needed to feel professional but approachable, showing industry expertise without coming across as stiff or corporate:
- Lead with credibility by putting real numbers front and center: 30 years, 400+ placements, international reach
- Make the difference clear by prominently explaining that 90% of candidates come from passive sourcing, not job board postings
- Remove friction by putting direct email and phone contact on every page with simple forms that don't ask for unnecessary information
- Stay relevant to the industry by using imagery and language specific to heating, cooling, chillers, air handlers, heat pumps, and commercial refrigeration
- Work on mobile since executives and sales professionals are constantly browsing on their phones
Visual Design
Working within the client's existing brand, I created a clean, professional look that communicates expertise without being overly corporate. Blues and grays throughout the site evoke trust and professionalism, while the typography makes key information like experience, specialization, and contact details stand out immediately.
Contact System
Instead of building a complex database, I set up a straightforward email based system:
- The candidate form captures name, email, phone, and a resume attachment in PDF or Word format
- Everything goes directly to the owner's email address
- There's no backend database which fits perfectly with his existing Microsoft based workflow
- Form validation makes sure contact information is properly formatted
- A confirmation message lets candidates know their submission went through and what to expect
Choosing Simplicity Over Features
I deliberately left out features like applicant tracking systems, candidate portals, or automated scheduling tools. Those might make sense for bigger firms, but they would just create maintenance headaches for a one person operation. The email based system works seamlessly with how the owner already manages his business and doesn't require any ongoing technical work.
Writing the Content
I worked with the owner to write copy that positions Strategic Search Partners as an industry insider rather than a generic recruiter. The messaging focuses on:
- A deep industry network built over 30 years
- Finding great candidates proactively instead of waiting for job applications
- Specializing in technical and executive roles, not entry level volume hiring
- International placement experience across North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America
- Understanding the three tier industry structure of manufacturers, representatives, and distributors
Deliverables
What I Built
This project delivered a complete website for a boutique executive recruitment firm that previously had no online presence.
Website Pages
- Homepage with a hero section featuring the value proposition, industry statistics, service overview, and clear buttons for both employers and candidates
- Employers page with service details, the placement process, and industry expertise breakdown
- Candidates page with a resume submission form including file attachment
- About page with the founder's background and company story
- Building Automation Systems specialty page targeting the controls industry
- Manufacturers specialty page for companies that make equipment
- Independent Representatives specialty page for sales rep organizations
- Energy and Controls specialty page for energy sector placements
User Flows
Employer Flow
Someone lands on the homepage, learns about the passive candidate sourcing approach, looks through the industry specializations, then reaches out via email or phone to discuss their hiring needs.
Candidate Flow
Someone lands on the homepage, goes to the candidates page, fills out a simple form with their resume attached, gets a confirmation that it went through, and the owner receives their submission in his inbox.
Contact System
I built a working contact system that sends candidate inquiries directly to the owner's email:
- Validation to make sure required fields are filled in correctly
- Resume attachment support for both PDF and Word documents
- Confirmation message when someone submits
- Direct connection to his existing workflow without needing any customer management software
Key Design Decisions
- No customer management integration to keep things simple and maintainable for one person
- Separate paths for employers versus candidates so each audience finds what they need quickly
- Industry specific specialty pages with tailored content for different market segments
- Mobile first responsive design that works well on any device
- Credibility signals with 30 years experience, 400+ placements, and international reach displayed prominently
Technical Details
The site was built on WordPress with the Kadence theme, which gives the client:
- Easy content updates without needing a developer
- Responsive design that works across devices
- Form functionality through FormSubmit
- A clean, professional look without custom development costs
What I Learned
This project reminded me how important it is to match design decisions to how a business actually operates. A fancy applicant tracking system might look impressive in a portfolio, but it would just create headaches for someone who already has a system that works. The best solution wasn't the one with the most features. It was the one that fit seamlessly into existing processes.
Taking the time to really understand the business model before designing made all the difference. Executive recruitment for specialized industries is completely different from high volume staffing. Knowing that 90% of placements come from passive candidates shaped everything about how the site is messaged and positioned.