Peter Gillespie, former MD of Edinburgh radio station Talk107, is set to launch a new online recruitment portal, search.co.uk.

Gillespie, a former director of recruitment specialists Search Consultancy, and backed by Saints Capital Chamonix, has  created the business to capitalise  on the strength of the existing search.co.uk domain name which the new company has purchased from Search Consultancy.

The site offers a new, response-based pricing model, which means advertisers only pay for ‘quality’ applications within targeted geographic limits, rather than paying for the advertising itself.

Peter Gillespie, managing director of Search.co.uk ltd said: “This is the first time a jobs advertising site has put the needs of the advertiser over those of the media owner. From long years of experience as an advertiser in the market, we know that advertisers are happy to pay for quality responses but resent the unpredictability of most of their current ad spend – not to mention continually rising costs.
 
“With search.co.uk, advertisers only pay for applicants who meet certain basic criteria and can also set limits on applicant numbers for each individual vacancy, then ‘preview’ further applicants before accepting them. This eliminates a lot of the waste of online recruitment advertising in generating, and paying for unsuitable applicants, and of being deluged with unwanted volume.”
 
He added: “The strength of the existing domain name, Search.co.uk, means we can offer a flow of candidates from day one but we have taken care to avoid being just another advertising site. We can deliver quality, value and an advertising-friendly, cost-effective model which we think is a fairer solution in a market increasingly dominated by a few big media owners.”     
 
Gillespie will introduce the concept to clients from late January, with the new site launching to the wider market in February 2009. The activity will focus on Scotland initially before rolling out across the rest of the UK during 2009.