Web design and software for an Irish recruitment agency that runs every placement in one place

Every hire Foresight make from outside the EU is a long chain of steps, from a work permit and document checks to travel and fees invoiced in stages. Each step created its own paperwork and its own questions, and the answers were spread across inboxes, folders and a spreadsheet. Foresight needed to grow the international side of the business without the admin growing with it.

A website that explains the process before the first call

Employers have plenty of agencies to choose from, and a hire that depends on a work permit asks for a lot of trust. We rebuilt foresight.ie to lay out the process, the permit route and the fees openly, so employers come to the first call already understanding how it works. Candidates learn about living and working in Ireland, browse live vacancies and register with a CV in a few steps. The whole site can be read in Portuguese or Filipino, and vacancies also appear in Google's job results.

Every CV read and summarised the moment it lands

CVs arrived in Portuguese and English, by form and by email, and a consultant had to read every one before knowing whether it was worth a call. Now AI reads each CV on arrival, translates it into English where needed and turns it into a candidate profile. The consultant gets a short brief instead of an attachment to open. When someone has applied for a named vacancy, the brief also says how well they suit the role and why. Consultants spend their time calling the right people rather than reading every CV to find them.

One place for every placement, open to candidates and employers

Candidates waiting on a permit wanted to know where they stood, and employers wanted updates on their hires. Companies, candidates, placements, contracts and invoices now live in one bespoke CRM with a record of every change. That means anyone on the team can open a placement and see exactly where it stands. Invoices are raised in stages as milestones such as a permit approval are reached. They go directly into Xero and payments flow back, so the accounts are never kept twice.

Candidates have their own account to check their application, upload documents, sit their English assessment and sign their job offer. Employers see their placements without candidates' personal details. Instead of emailing Foresight for an update, both sides can now simply look. Not everyone wants another password, so candidates can also accept an offer or sign a contract from a secure link in an email.

Testing which adverts bring candidates in from overseas

To reach automotive tradespeople in Brazil, we ran social media adverts that sent them to a registration page co-branded with a Brazilian vocational school. Every CV that arrives is traced back to the advert that produced it, so Foresight can see which message works. In five days the adverts brought in 138 CVs. Of those, 80 came from the versions offering to match people with the right employer, more than the salary-led versions brought in.

Five months after launch, the website was bringing in between 22 and 34 CV registrations, job applications and employer enquiries a day, and more of them were finding Foresight through Google.

International recruitment is a compliance process as much as a sales one, so permits and staged invoicing belong in the system rather than in someone's head. Let people act from a secure link in an email, because plenty of candidates will accept an offer long before they'll create a password. When recruiting overseas, test more than one message, because offering people the right employer can bring in more candidates than an advert about pay.

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