European Recruitment Is Now European Tech Recruit: Our Rebranding Story

I started thinking about website redesign and possible rebranding when I joined European Recruitment in March 2022 as I saw a big opportunity and room for improvement. However, in the first year of my work here, there were some more urgent tasks to tackle.

This journey started in early 2023. The management team and I took a deep dive into our business objectives and identity. After extensive research, we realised that our brand no longer accurately represented our company. Our digital assets, including our website, didn’t match the quality and level of service we now provide.

One key issue was that the name ‘European Recruitment’ was too broad, given our specialised focus on technology industries. Additionally, our existing website and brand identity no longer conveyed who we are or served our visitors well. Our old brand and website reflected who we were five years ago. However, they no longer represented our current position as a leading technology recruitment agency. We have progressed, improved, and grown, so our brand image needed to reflect that transformation. There was no denying it – our brand identity and website were outdated and needed a revamp to align with our current status and future aspirations.

Our general goals with the rebranding project were to create a brand identity and a website that reflected our current position and future aspirations as a leading technology recruitment agency. We wanted to achieve the following:

• More meaningful, clear, and straight to the point.
  We wanted to communicate our value proposition and services effectively and concisely.
• More minimalist and clean.
  We wanted to avoid clutter and distractions and focus on the essential information and elements.
• More intuitive and easy to navigate.
  We wanted to provide a user-friendly and seamless experience for our visitors and potential clients.
• More vibrant and bold.
  We wanted to stand out from the crowd and showcase our confidence and expertise.

Rethinking Our Brand Name

We used the name European Recruitment since our inception in 2009. Brand names can be abstract or descriptive of the service the company provides. Ours was descriptive, and back then it made total sense for the business, to communicate that we were simply a recruitment company operating in Europe. It worked well for us as we were a young growing company that needed to introduce ourselves to as many businesses as possible.

After a while, when we grew and became a more renowned company, we realised that the name ‘European Recruitment’ often caused confusion as to what sort of industry we were serving. Over time, it became clear that with this name, we were casting our net too wide and were not targeting well enough. This went especially against our quite narrow and specific focus on the advanced technology sector. It became obvious that we needed to improve our brand name to clear up this confusion, communicating clearly the kind of service we provide.

As Chris Canneaux, Director, explained:

“We felt that our old branding and website didn’t reflect and convey as best possible our expertise and true focus on the technology industry, so we really want to focus on making this at the forefront of our new branding.”

Finding the Solution to the Branding Confusion

Looking for ways to correct the issue at hand, we decided not to reinvent the wheel. Adding the word ‘Tech’ to our brand name was a simple solution that addressed all the problems we had with the previous name. ‘European Tech Recruit’ clearly communicates that we are:

• A recruitment company
• That serves the technology industry
• Operating in Europe

Indeed, these are the three key elements that describe our business. Compare this with ‘European Recruitment’ – ‘A recruitment company that operates in Europe’. Such a small change, and such a vast difference in meaning and definition. In addition, we liked the idea of changing the company name only slightly to preserve our brand name recognition. All in all, the name ‘European Tech Recruit’ was a perfect solution, we loved it, and it stuck.

As part of the same rebranding campaign, we have updated the name of our sister company USA Tech Recruitment to ‘USA Tech Recruit’. We have also created a new brand LATAM Tech Recruit to better target the Latin American market where we have been working for a while now too.

“It’s been quite a journey form start to finish on what we all felt works for the senior management team who have all worked for European Recruitment for a minimum 12-15 years, so are highly invested in the brand and website!  Plus, those more at the coal face who gave their input.  It’s worked out better than we could have ever expected due to Ira’s diligence, patience, hard work and talent in this area.”

David Wicks, Founder and Managing Director

Logo and Brand Colours Rebranding

Our rebranding campaign involved not only a name change but also a logo and brand colours revamp.

Rethinking Our Logo Design

Our old logo comprised an abstract element, a ‘diamond’, and the brand name. Initially, we just wanted to refresh it slightly, updating the brand name according to the changes we had made. However, the deeper we dug into it, the clearer it was becoming that the ‘diamond’ wasn’t at all a meaningful element anymore. All the ‘meanings’ that were attributed to it in the old cycle of brand updates now seemed quite superficial and frankly superfluous.

Since one of the core goals of our rebranding campaign was to cut out the unnecessary (‘waffle’), this ‘diamond’ element simply stopped making sense. We needed to keep the pure essence of who we are, clear, concise, and genuine. After a lengthy process of working through dozens of options, we made the decision to remove the ‘diamond’, keeping the representational, verbal, part of the logo. We of course updated the font too, choosing one that would match the design style that we picked for our new brand and website: minimalist, techy, and slick.

Choosing New Brand Colours

Picking the right colours was an entire journey in itself, and an important one. During this rebranding stage, we addressed such crucial components of our business as our brand mission and values. Who are we? What are we? Why are we doing what we are doing? What do we stand for? Answering these questions made it easier for us to pick the perfect colour palette to match and reflect our brand identity.

We realised that our old palette of four subdued colours did not express our spirit anymore. The ‘subdued’ part wasn’t working for us. We wanted to go bold, strong, beautiful and diverse. This is exactly what we got in the end – five gorgeous colours, fresh and vibrant.

Do these colours mean anything? They do. The variety of colours represents our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The green that we chose as the leading colour for the European Tech Recruit brand is a nod to sustainable, green energy, as the general direction in which the tech world is and should be heading. All the above is true and influenced our decision when choosing this palette. However, the main reason we chose these colours was because… we just really liked them! They spoke to us, they felt like us – they felt right.

“I am no marketeer, seeing how many moving parts there are to a rebrand / new website has been eye opening. Ira has done a great job of balancing keeping our company identity whilst also modernising. I am excited by the new website and look forward to never discussing different shades of green again.”

Jenna Thompson, Director

Creating a New Website

Finishing the branding part of our project felt like a huge achievement, and it truly was an incredible journey. However, the biggest challenge was still ahead – creating the new website.

There were so many components to it that we needed to get right, that the task seemed quite overwhelming at first. SEO, writing 100+ pages of on-page content, coming up with a design approach that would be visually appealing and functional, and making sure the website structure and functions are as optimised and intuitive as possible. It’s safe to say that a lot of work and effort went into it. But we are so proud of what we’ve got now.

Our direction with the design was again determined by the general project goals.

Led by these principles and by the brand guidelines we’ve developed, the talented web designers from the Zajno digital design and development agency that we partnered with for this project came up with a mood board for us and a few references to pinpoint what exactly we were after. At this stage, making decisions came much easier to us. This was owing to the long journey of learning and rediscovering ourselves that we took during the rebranding stage.

The wireframing stage was one of the most important ones as it defined the structure and how user-friendly the website would be. We created both visual and structural wireframes to cover both UX and SEO aspects.

Once the wireframes were ready, the Zajno team started working on the design. In the meanwhile, the Go Up team started writing up copy for over 100 website pages to cover the European Tech Recruit and USA Tech Recruit websites. This was certainly one of the longest and most laborious stages of our rebranding campaign because of the sheer amount of work and the little nuances that needed to be remembered and done as well as the main chunk of work.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

The day when we handed over the design and finalised copy to the development team was a huge milestone for us and a cause for celebration – we could finally begin to see the finish line, still vague and far away, but steadily approaching. We still had some designs to polish and branding collateral to finalise, but the light at the end of the tunnel was truly showing now.

There is an unsurprisingly large number of things to think about when the launch date is approaching. Besides flagging bugs and supporting the development team with various integrations we needed, there is a whole host of things that need to happen. Is the SEO pre-launch audit going to the plan? Are the new brand assets ready to be rolled out on all platforms simultaneously? What about branded documents? Signatures? Do we have new business cards? Don’t forget to run a comprehensive update of business pitch documents and whiteboards, rewrite and redesign them in line with the new branding. And of course, write a press release piece to share the whole story – the what, why, and how-s!

Now that this all is done, there is a huge sense of relief and satisfaction. After 18 months of working on this project, the website is finally live. We are so proud of what we have achieved, and we are looking forward to working with our new website and settling into our new brand identity – it is a truly exciting time for us!

We hope that by sharing our journey with you, we have given you a good insight into who we are and the reasons behind the change.

What Has Not Changed With Our Rebranding?

Behind all the changes to the facade, the essence of who we are, and our core values remain a constant. Our mission is still to expedite technological advancement by finding the best-fitting top-tier candidates for innovative tech projects.

We pride ourselves on the quality of candidate and client care we provide. Holding ourselves to the highest quality standards will always remain at the heart of what we do.

We believe in transparency, integrity, and accountability, giving no empty promises, and staying true to our word. Coincidently, this is the best way to keep the efficiency so high. We never have the need to embellish our offerings. Fortunately, we are good at what we do – that does make things a lot easier.

Our commitment to increasing diversity within the technology industry remains one of our key goals. We believe that a variety of unique perspectives is paramount for making the right calls. Especially in the fast-paced era of technological progress that humanity is going through now.

Rebranding Results and Conclusion

We are delighted to say that we have achieved our goals. Our new brand name is now more appropriate to what we do. It better communicating what kind of service we provide without creating confusion. The new logo represents who we are in a neat and clear way, stripped of meaningless elements. Our new brand colours visually reflect our brand identity: vibrant, strong, and diverse. The new website works better, it is no longer clunky, but instead, it is a user-friendly, optimised, and intuitive digital asset, with a clear, minimalist, and modern design.

We needed this refresh to be able to tell our story but just better, show who we truly are, while creating a digital product of top quality that works smoothly and is most useful for our clients and candidates. This is exactly what we got in the end, which makes this project a success – and we are extremely pleased with the result.

• Brand name
  Broad and confusing -> Clearly communicates what kind of service we provide, avoiding confusion
• Logo
  Brand Name + an abstract element -> Brand name, stripped of meaningless elements
• Colours
  Dull and subdued -> Vibrant, strong, and diverse
• Design
  Busy, cluttered, outdated -> Clean, minimalist, and modern
• Website
  Clunky, poorly structured, and unreliable  -> Intuitive, smooth, and easy to navigate

“Participating in the rebranding journey of European Recruitment to European Tech Recruit has been an eye-opening experience and a massive learning curve about the nuances of marketing. From conceptualising the website redesign to finalising the new brand identity it was amazing to see it all taking shape. There were various meetings and discussions around logo designs, colour schemes, gradients and fonts and whether this best reflected us as business and the message we want to portray to our clients.

There was a clear goal in mind, to modernise our website to give the best user experience but also to make our message and branding clearer to our clients within the tech industry. I am very excited and proud of what has been achieved and the hard work has led to a modern, vibrant, and clear representation of our company.”

Chris Canneaux, Director