How to choose a GEO partner for your recruitment firm

Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the work of getting your firm found and recommended when people ask ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude or Google's AI. This is how to choose who does it for you.

What should you check first before hiring a GEO agency?

Whether they actually understand the recruitment industry and specialise in it, or whether they're a generic GEO agency. There's a difference between being able to get a firm mentioned in AI search conversations, and actually converting AI conversations into leads, meetings and opportunities for your firm.

Plenty of marketing agencies now offer GEO. When you dig into what they're delivering, a lot of them are guaranteeing that you'll appear in AI conversations. I'd question where the value is in just appearing.

A quick test: if what they're pitching you could be lifted and said to a dental practice or an accountancy firm, it's a standardised pitch.

GEO agency or SEO agency with AI bolted on?

An SEO agency's background is optimising businesses for Google. They do keyword research to understand what your clients search for, then target those searches. On Google, people are usually looking for a supplier, and what comes up is largely who's spent money on SEO.

GEO is broader. People don't just go to AI saying “I'm looking for a supplier”. More and more, they go with their actual problems and challenges - the ones that later lead to needing a supplier. GEO offers the opportunity to get in the conversation earlier.

To do that, you need to know what your clients are asking AI. You can't keyword-research it - nobody knows exactly what people are typing. Without the commercial acumen of having worked in the industry, it's a finger in the air exercise.

Why your GEO partner needs to understand recruitment

Relationships come from demonstrating credibility, building trust and adding value. But to get the chance to do those things, your firm has to show up in the right place, at the right time, with the right angle. Someone from a generic marketing background won't necessarily understand that - and generic marketing hasn't historically given recruitment firms a good return.

The difference is knowing the hiring triggers: what's happening in your clients' world that will lead them to hire.

Take cyber security. A lot of cyber leadership hires start with a threat. It might be an attack in a supplier's network. It might be a business losing tenders because it doesn't have the right certifications and can't answer the security questions well enough. When they start exploring it with AI, the answer often ends up being that they need someone to take accountability for it internally. That's a hire - and it started as a problem, not a brief.

I'd question whether a generic GEO agency would uncover that trigger. Experience in recruitment is what lets you map out what your clients are saying to AI before it leads to hiring, and before they go looking for a supplier.

What should a GEO partner measure?

Most firms offering GEO measure AI visibility: prompt testing to see how often your business is mentioned, cited and recommended by the main AI platforms. That matters, and it's part of what we track too. But a good partner should be delivering a return, not just visibility.

So we track the whole route:

• AI visibility - how often you're mentioned, cited and recommended in the conversations that matter.
• Visits - how many people land on your website from those conversations.
• The businesses behind the visits - which companies are asking AI these questions, so your consultants can follow up.
• Leads and meetings - who downloads a guide or books a meeting with your firm.
• Your ratios - how many leads to book a meeting, meetings to win a vacancy, vacancies to make a placement, and your average fee.

That's how we tie it together and measure right through to return on investment, rather than leaving you guessing whether it's been worth it.

Where our responsibility stops: once your consultants are in the room, whether they win the work is on them. We take it right through to meetings and leads.

Red flags in a GEO pitch

• It's generic. Nothing in it is specific to recruitment, or to your firm.
• The only prompt they'll target is “who's the best recruitment agency”. No digging deeper into the problems that come before it.
• They promise the sun. Guaranteed results in three months.
• They only measure AI visibility.
• They don't need any time with your people. If the plan is to list the roles you recruit and cross their fingers, that's not original insight AI can recommend.

Should a GEO agency guarantee results?

No. Nobody sat outside your business can guarantee that your consultants will win the work, fill the roles or sign retained work. That's outwith our control. The furthest anyone can honestly go is generating more opportunities for your firm - leads and meetings to pitch for work, with clients and with candidates.

The candidate side matters as much. A lot of relationships in recruitment start with someone as a candidate who gets a really good service. More conversations with senior candidates is just as valuable as more client meetings - they become clients later. A partner that understands recruitment knows that. A generic agency will treat candidates as applications.

How should GEO be priced?

With these things you often get what you pay for. Be wary of anyone charging every firm the same. Every business is at a different starting point: some have a website that's barely there, some have been building their online presence for two decades. The work to get each recommended by AI is completely different. If a firm charges the same for both, I'd question what they're actually delivering.

And be wary of anyone guaranteeing results within three months. Building your presence takes time, and so does learning which AI conversations carry volume and which ones lead to a return, so you can focus there.

How long before you see anything?

• After three months: an increase in AI visibility, through prompt testing.
• After six months: data on what's working - what's generating leads and meetings.
• After twelve months: meetings converting to placements, and a return you can attribute to the spend.

Realistically, it takes six to twelve months before you're really seeing the return come through. A good partner will tell you that up front.

Agency, freelancer or do it yourself?

Horses for courses. As an owner, your focus is relationships with clients and candidates and filling roles. If you're confident you can learn GEO, research it and do the work behind the scenes, and you want to, go ahead. The trade-off is that it takes you away from the work that brings in revenue - which could cost your business far more than paying someone who knows what they're doing.

A freelancer usually charges for their time and effort rather than for results, so it's hard to hold them accountable for the outcome. Look for a partner who sets realistic expectations and a timeline, and then delivers against it.

What a good GEO partner needs from your firm

Time with your consultants. The original examples of situations they've handled - how they run processes, how they win business, the value they add and the reasons clients work with them. That's what goes online so AI can confidently recommend you.

Original data. It can be salary data nobody else has for a specific role in a specific region. It can also be one or two examples of when a hire went wrong, or when hiring wasn't the answer - an original take AI can't generate.

Here's the kind of thing AI can't produce. A consultant on a technology desk gets a spec with a list of required experience. From years with similar businesses, they read between the lines: the person who'd excel in the role isn't always the one who ticks the boxes - that one might mean re-recruiting in three to six months. Interview that consultant and put it on a page, and you're offering something original.

Openness. Recruitment has seen LinkedIn, Indeed and Google all arrive with the same scepticism. The firms that moved early won the ground cheap. The rest have been buying it since. You can be open to this now, or wait until your competitors are doing it and be forced to.

If you're still deciding whether AI search matters for your firm at all, start with Does AI search matter for recruitment firms trying to win clients? If you want to see how we'd look at your firm, that's here.

Common questions

What should I check before hiring a GEO agency for my recruitment firm?

Whether they understand recruitment and specialise in it. A generic agency can get you mentioned by AI; a recruitment specialist turns AI conversations into leads, meetings and opportunities.

What's the difference between GEO and SEO?

SEO targets what people search for on Google, usually when they're looking for a supplier. GEO gets you into AI conversations earlier, when people bring their problems to ChatGPT, Copilot or Claude, before they need a supplier.

What should a GEO agency measure?

AI visibility, plus the visits, businesses, leads and meetings it produces, worked back through your own ratios - meetings to vacancies, vacancies to placements and average fee - to a return on investment.

Should a GEO agency guarantee results?

No. No one outside your firm controls whether your consultants win the work. The honest promise is more opportunities - leads and meetings with clients and candidates.

How long does GEO take to work for a recruitment firm?

Around three months for an increase in AI visibility, six months for data on what generates leads and meetings, and twelve months for meetings converting to placements and an attributable return.

Darren Boyle

Founder, the GEO folk

Over a decade in recruitment. Now works with recruitment firms on how they get found and recommended by AI assistants. LinkedIn · Companies House · About · Get in touch