Scaling Personal Connections in a Global Giant
How Reed Transformed Business Development, Brand Safety, and Candidate Attraction
Reed is a household name in recruitment, but with great scale comes great complexity. With a vast network of international divisions and franchise partnerships, the challenge was clear: how to empower thousands of consultants to build personal relationships and drive business development without compromising brand control or security?
By partnering with Paiger, Reed moved from manual, administrative heavy-lifting to an intelligence-led strategy, turning their consultants into market experts and significantly increasing value for their end clients and candidates.
The Challenge: Scale vs Agility Paradox
As a global leader, Reed’s marketing team supports markets across the UK, the US, and Central Europe. However, maintaining agility and brand consistency at this scale created distinct bottlenecks:
- The "Blank Page" Problem: Consultants are excellent at speaking with people but often lack the time or confidence to write high-quality social media posts, leading to missed opportunities in the digital market.
- Legacy Sales Collateral: Previous tools for formatting CVs and candidate specs were functionally outdated, producing documents that didn't reflect Reed’s premium brand standing to their clients.
- Security vs. Innovation: With high-level government and intelligence contracts, Reed faces exceptionally high security thresholds. Most off-the-shelf "viral" tools couldn't pass their strict digital governance protocols.
- The Franchise Dynamic: Because franchisees are independent entities, the central team couldn't mandate the use of tools. They needed a solution so commercially valuable that business owners would adopt it voluntarily to drive revenue.
The Solution: "Swiss Army Knife" of Recruitment Tech
Reed implemented Paiger not just as a social tool, but as a central engine for Business Development (BD) and Brand Governance.
-
From Cold Research to Intelligence-Led Action (BD Focus). Previously, BD involved hours of manual searching. Paiger shifted this to a proactive workflow. By delivering daily market signals (hiring alerts, funding news, and vacancies) directly to consultants’ inboxes, the team could stop "looking for leads" and start acting on them. This speed-to-market allows Reed consultants to reach clients first.
-
Elevating the Client Experience. Reed replaced legacy documentation with Paiger’s 'Candidate Speccing' tools. Consultants can now instantly turn a CV into a crisp, anonymised, and branded visual pitch.
- Value for the Client: Clients receive professional, easy-to-digest profiles rather than messy attachments, reinforcing that they are working with a premium agency.
- Value for the Candidate: Their profile is marketed faster and more professionally, getting them in front of hiring managers before the competition.
- Brand Governance via 'Locked' Creativity. To solve the content barrier, Marketing created a 'toolbox' of social graphics. Consultants can customise the text for their local market but are locked into the approved design framework. This ensures that whether a post goes out in London, New York, or Warsaw, it looks distinctly Reed.
%20(2).png?width=2000&height=458&name=Reed%20(1)%20(2).png "Reed (1) (2)")
"Paiger is the Swiss Army knife of recruitment. You could buy ten different tools to do what it does, but you won't find one that combines everything for as good a price. It’s an absolute BD weapon that speaks the recruitment language."
The Results
The implementation has fundamentally changed how Reed generates business and attracts talent.
- Dominant Candidate Source: In several international markets, Paiger has overtaken traditional job boards. The majority of applications now originate directly from consultants' personal, Paiger-powered social posts, giving Reed access to passive talent that competitors aren't seeing.
- Accelerated Revenue Generation: The ability to rapidly format a CV into a visual pitch and share it socially has become a primary driver of new business. Speed is currency, and Reed consultants are now faster than the market.
- Marketing Efficiency: The central marketing team reclaimed hours of daily manual work, allowing them to focus on strategy rather than distribution.
- 100% Brand Safety: By standardising on Paiger, Reed eliminated the risk of consultants using unpoliced, insecure AI plugins.
Spotlight: AI Governance & Security
For a business like Reed, "move fast and break things" is not an option. Leadership highlighted that Paiger allows them to innovate without risk:
- Standardised Security: Paiger meets the stringent security thresholds required for government work—something individual browser plugins cannot do.
- Quality Control: It ensures that AI is used to enhance the human element, not replace it. The system handles the heavy lifting of formatting and writing, freeing up consultants to do what they do best: interviewing talent and consulting with clients.
"Paiger is the Swiss Army knife of recruitment. You could buy ten different tools to do what it does, but you won't find one that combines everything for as good a price. It’s an absolute BD weapon that speaks the recruitment language."
%20(2).png?width=3840&height=880&name=Reed%20(1)%20(2).png)
The Results
The implementation has fundamentally changed how Reed generates business and attracts talent.
- Dominant Candidate Source: In several international markets, Paiger has overtaken traditional job boards. The majority of applications now originate directly from consultants' personal, Paiger-powered social posts, giving Reed access to passive talent that competitors aren't seeing.
- Accelerated Revenue Generation: The ability to rapidly format a CV into a visual pitch and share it socially has become a primary driver of new business. Speed is currency, and Reed consultants are now faster than the market.
- Marketing Efficiency: The central marketing team reclaimed hours of daily manual work, allowing them to focus on strategy rather than distribution.
- 100% Brand Safety: By standardising on Paiger, Reed eliminated the risk of consultants using unpoliced, insecure AI plugins.
Spotlight: AI Governance & Security
For a business like Reed, "move fast and break things" is not an option. Leadership highlighted that Paiger allows them to innovate without risk:
- Standardised Security: Paiger meets the stringent security thresholds required for government work—something individual browser plugins cannot do.
- Quality Control: It ensures that AI is used to enhance the human element, not replace it. The system handles the heavy lifting of formatting and writing, freeing up consultants to do what they do best: interviewing talent and consulting with clients.