Scottish internet business reaps rewards of technical breakthroughs

s1, the Glasgow based internet publisher, has reported an unprecedented increase in job seeker activity on its Scottish recruitment site, s1jobs.com.



Last month saw job seeker applications emailed directly from s1jobs to employers increase by a remarkable 18,000. Overall there were 151,000 applications emailed from s1jobs during May, representing an increase of 15% over previous comparable months.

s1 attributes this performance gain to the cutting-edge technology behind the new-look s1jobs website, which went live in early May.

Mark Smith, s1nowís MD explained: ìThe new-look s1jobs was created entirely by s1ís in-house web development team over a 6 month period. From the outset, our focus was on improving an already excellent user experience into one that was truly world-class.î

Key improvements on s1jobs include RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which alerts job seekers of new vacancies instantly and directly on their desktop ñ without even having to open their email client. The search function has been enhanced with the introduction of ëspecialismí and ëjob typeí tiers within certain skill sets. These additional filtering options mean more relevant results for job seekers and more appropriate applicants for recruiters ñ a key requirement as the volume of vacancies carried by s1jobs continues to grow. Whatís more, by using the latest dynamic page-loading techniques, s1 has been able to introduce the additional functionality while at the same time significantly reducing download times.

Smith added: ìThe new-look s1jobs is already delivering outstanding benefits for both our employer clients and job-seeking users and is a credit to the excellence of our in-house developers.î

The new-look website launched one week after s1jobs won Brand Company of the Year at the 2005 Scottish Marketing Excellence Awards.