Recruiters Websites earns Vendor of Year at St. Louis conference

Jeff Gipson founded his company, Recruiters Websites, in 2012 after his side gig became too lucrative to ignore. Having taught himself web developing while working with his brother, Steve, at his father's St. Louis talent recruiting company, James Allen Companies Inc., Gipson found himself picking up freelance work helping clients with web presence. Eventually, demand was such Gipson had to turn away prospective clients and began to weigh the idea of starting a firm specifically for talent recruiting companies.

"We saw a niche in the recruiting space," Gipson said. "There were these small companies with worn-out websites, sites that needed a more modern look and feel."

His nine years of experience as a recruiter, he realized, could give him an additional insight into how a talent-recruiting website functions best. In the six years since Gipson founded Recruiters Websites, his hunch has paid off. His seven-person team has helped around 500 clients around the world and last month bested hundreds of competitors including industry giants Monster, CareerBuilder and LinkedIn to take the top award, Vendor of the Year, at the MRINetwork Global Conference in St. Louis.

"We are excited and thrilled to be part of such a great network and look forward to helping member businesses grow," Gipson said. "It's an honor to compete with these global tech companies and even more so for a company of our size."

And it's Gipson's intention to increase his company's size. Based in Cape Girardeau's startup hub Codefi, Recruiters Websites has a nearby pool of prospective talent in Southeast Missouri State University and Gipson said his company is well-positioned for growth.

Steve Gipson, who now serves as sales manager for Recruiters Websites, said the recruiting industry as a whole is expected to grow from its current size -- about $150 billion -- to as much as $200 billion over the next five years.

Even so, Jeff Gipson said, it's still a largely unfamiliar sector for most people.

"When I say recruiting, most people think I work with an army recruiter," he said.

In reality, he explained, his business offers many of the typical services of a digital agency, from search-engine optimization to web design and copywriting, but with a focus on recruiters' needs. And since the MRINetwork award is based on third-party customer reviews, it seems their industry-specific approach is working.

Plus, the Recruiters Websites website won best in category for web design, which is, as Gipson pointed out, especially satisfying when your business is designing websites.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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