CV-Library: This Is Why CV-Library Are A Must-Have For Recruiters

How do CV-Library rank amongst the job-board industry and how can they assist with your candidate search?

The Fleet-based business has gone from strength to strength since setting up 22 years ago. You can even make a compelling argument that despite stout competition from the likes of Indeed and Totaljobs - that they have been one of the top-performers over the past few years.

Across the board, CV-Library ticks all the boxes. They have a huge candidate database with generous usage limits, far-reaching job postings, award-winning customer support and they're competitively priced too. The excellent customer service in particular is welcomed by businesses up and down the country. After all, the industry is littered with pushy sales-reps, unexplained account cancellations and ludicrous price increases.

CV-Library boast an extensive database featuring over 18m candidates. You can make particular use out of this as many of their packages normally include full and unlimited search access - with no constraining download limits.

Stat: CV-Library have a fantastic presence in London with over 3m+ candidates subscribed in this area (33% of the overall populace).

What's included in one of their subscriptions?

In regard to the actual product that CV-Library provide, it's an intuitive platform that maintains a simple, functional and fool-proof design.

The CV database has typically been their stronger offering as they are placed at the ideal intersection between both providing clients with a high degree of usage (most packages are sold as "unlimited access") and to a high volume of candidate's CV's too (18 million CV's as of Nov 2022). This is partly the reason why they are so popular for agencies up and down the country, who need to trawl through hundreds of CV's per day, as CV-Library are one of few websites who can actually provide this level of usage. Most other sites are either bogged down with stringent download caps or simply have an inadequate volume of candidate CV's on their system.

It's not quite as smooth and polished as the likes of LinkedIn, however their sleekness can sometimes be at the detriment of putting off the less tech-savvy audience. Whilst with CV-Library, it's a perfectly comfortable user experience from both a candidate's and a client's point of view.

10,000+ clients are currently subscribed to CV-Library, with their board currently boasting an impressive 240,000+ live job vacancies. One of their main selling points is that once a client posts a job advert on CV-Library, it's sent to over 800+ relevant affiliate network sites, most notably this features the likes of British-Jobs.co.uk, Adzuna.co.uk & JobRapido.co.uk. For clients who work in a specific sector they will find that the sector specific sites that the adverts sent too are equally as effective, the reason being that these platforms traditionally pull in a better quality of candidate by directly going to the likes of IT-Jobs.co.uk, Engineering-Jobs.co.uk and Education-Jobs.co.uk.

Further affiliate network information can be found here: https://www.cv-library.co.uk/network

How do they stand out from the rest?

One of the most impressive aspects of the CV-Library service is the day-to-day customer support that they provide. They are easily contactable on their main telephone line but also provide both email support and a handy web-chat too.

For paid subscribers, they are all provided with a Customer Service Representative who are able to provide full account assistance (including full account training which is free of charge) and they're also able to offer assistance with CV searches and job posting tips to ensure maximum response. It's for this reason that they have achieved an industry-leading score of 4.8 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot with over 2,000+ positive reviews from both clients and candidates alike.

I have also included the October 2022 industry statistics below. Great to get a good insight into where CV-Library excel, during a key month of the year:

How are CV-Library priced?

In regard to the pricing aspect, CV-Library are reasonably priced when compared to a couple of their main competitors in the market (think Tesco vs M&S). You'll find the pricing structure below to work in this format for the 5 major UK job-boards. This is in order from most expensive to cheapest, for a standard 12-month package:

1. Totaljobs (Most expensive)

2. Indeed

3. CV-Library

4. Reed

5. Monster (Cheapest)

CV-Library usually offer discounted rates for clients who can prepay for their packages. Discounts for prepaying - as oppose to paying monthly - can range anywhere from 10-15%, depending on a number of other factors like the overall package value. They do also offer split payments and pay quarterly options too, yet they are reluctant to offer payment terms to most clients, due to the uncertain nature of the industry.

Is it worth looking at a download package?

In recent years, CV-Library have also introduced a popular type of download package, whereby you can view an unlimited volume of CV's and you can pay for X amount of CV downloads to use over a certain tenure. In return for your more tailored usage, the sales team have access to a lower rate when compared to the more popular unlimited access offering. This isn't advised for higher-usage clients such as construction, driving and warehouse recruiters - but perhaps executive search and sector-specific clients may see this as a more affordable avenue without limiting themselves too much.

The next 12-months will be crucial for CV-Library who have won a countless number of Totaljobs' long-term clients - and have arguably been the primary benefactors of this. If they fail to impress these clients with fresh CV's and high application ratios, it won't be long before they drag their feet back to Totaljobs. The initial feedback from clients has been immensely positive, with their being a sense of appreciation towards the likes of CV-Library and Reed for not following a couple of their main competitors by ramping their rates up.

Stat: CV-Library have seen a year-on-year increase of 19% in live job postings on their site from this time last year (from 1,665,000 live jobs up to 1,980,000).

What they do well...

1. The third largest candidate database in the UK with 18+ million CV's. Plus, they have a strong volume of fresh new registrations and updated CV's every month too (circa 190,000).

2. The market-leaders for excellent customer service. You are designated with a customer service advisor who is on hand to offer key guidance regarding the account.

3. Packages are both reasonably priced and generous in terms of what's included. No strict download/watchdog caps which hinder your accounts success.

Where can they improve...

1. They lack a strong overseas presence which both LinkedIn and Indeed have. This can prevent them from becoming a staple job-board for recruiters who do a large chunk of recruitment internationally.

Overall rating: 8/10

CV-Library are a popular choice for recruiters up and down the country. This explains their multiple award wins since they have been running including the likes of the "Recruitment Website of The Decade" at the NORA's and multi award wins at the most recent Onrec Awards.

They score a phenomenal 4.8/5 on TrustPilot which is industry-leading and much of the positivity to CV-Library stems from the helpful customer-service and account-management support.

Historically, CV-Library do tend to perform better in more built-up areas and cities - due to the nature of their advertising being in these areas across the road, tube, rail and bus networks. Nevertheless, they do perform well across a variety of different sectors due to their extensive affiliate network sites which feature several different sites per industry.

Granted the likes of Indeed & LinkedIn attract more site traffic, however CV-Library balance this out by offering generous candidate search access and watchdog email alerts.

Please feel free to reach out either in the comment section below or via email to smartfind@outlook.com if you have any questions.