Quick answer
A recruitment agency logo has two audiences, candidates and hiring clients, and it appears on job adverts that the law says must carry your full name. A perm desk, a temp and staffing business or a niche specialist gets the horizontal, stacked and icon-only layouts for £129: one set of files for job board tiles, timesheets, contracts and the client pitch.
This page is for recruitment agencies and staffing businesses of any size, from a one-person executive search firm to a temp agency supplying warehouse and care staff. Marketing and HR consultancies that only recruit now and then are better served by our page on logos for agencies and freelancers. For a recruiter, the brand is judged in a scrolling feed of job ads, most of them from competitors, often in the second it takes to read a job title.
Perm desk, temp desk or niche specialist?
| Business | Busiest places for the brand | Design priority |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent recruitment | LinkedIn, job boards, CV covers sent to clients, the terms of business | A confident mark that looks credible beside a client’s own brand |
| Temporary and contract staffing | Timesheets, worker ID badges, hi-vis, the worker app, invoices | A one-colour logo that survives cheap printing and small screens |
| Niche specialist (construction, care, tech, legal) | Sector job boards, trade events, the specialist’s own network | A look that belongs in the sector it recruits for |
| Executive search | Confidential briefs, shortlist reports, the partner’s email signature | Restraint: the brand of a quiet adviser, not a job board |
Your full name has to be on every advert
Recruitment has a rule that most trades never meet. Regulation 27 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, which extends to England, Wales and Scotland, says an advertisement must mention the full name of the agency or employment business in audible spoken words or easily legible characters, and must state for each position whether it is for temporary or permanent work. Where an advert gives rates of pay, it must also state the nature of the work, the location, and the minimum experience, training or qualifications needed to receive those rates.
What it means for your logo: the full business name has to read on every job graphic even when only your icon fits, so plan your adverts around it:
- An icon alone is not enough on a job graphic. If you use a monogram on social posts, make sure the full business name also appears in legible text on every advert.
- Use the name you advertise under in the logo, so there is never doubt about who placed the advert.
- Templates need room for the required lines. Design job graphics with space for “temporary” or “permanent”, the location and the pay details, rather than squeezing them under a large logo.
Job board tiles, LinkedIn banners and the vacancy post
Many candidates first meet your brand as a small square beside a job title on a job board or LinkedIn. What it means for your logo: pick a colour no big competitor in your sector uses, because among dozens of other squares at that size it often sets your icon apart faster than any symbol.
For social media, a set of vacancy templates in your colours keeps every post recognisable even when different consultants publish them. Our guides to setting up a LinkedIn company page and to Facebook ads for recruitment cover the sizes and formats, while a set of vacancy templates in your colours comes from our social media design at £79.
Your own website is where a candidate who saw the ad decides whether to apply. If your recruitment software feeds live vacancies to the site, the job pages, the application form and the confirmation email are generated from templates, and each one carries the logo at a fixed size in a fixed place. Give the developer the horizontal logo as an SVG for the header and the icon as a square for the favicon and email header, and the whole candidate journey from advert to confirmation looks like one business.
Timesheets, contracts and the worker’s ID badge
On the temp side the logo goes onto paperwork that is handled on a warehouse floor, in a care home office or on a building site. Timesheets, assignment confirmations, payslips, worker handbooks and induction packs are often printed in black and white or filled in on a phone, so the horizontal logo must work in one colour at a small size.
Workers on client sites may wear your ID badge or hi-vis while doing the client’s work, and the client may decide how visible your brand can be. What it means for your logo: a small, clean icon on a badge or a chest print is easier for a client to accept than a large logo across a worker’s back, so the icon must hold up alone at lanyard size.
Hi-vis and uniform suppliers need particular files, and our embroidery and signage logo guide lists them.
For temps, the brand also lives in the app or portal where they pick up shifts and submit hours. The icon there should match the one on their badge and timesheet, so a new starter never wonders whether a shift offer or a pay query really came from you rather than from another agency they are registered with.
The REC badge and other memberships
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation says in its Code of Professional Practice page that displaying the REC logo tells candidates and clients that you have passed its compliance assessment and adhere to its Code, and that all REC corporate members must pass a compliance assessment every two years to join and stay in membership.
What it means for your logo: because the REC badge depends on passing that assessment every two years, it sits in a credentials row beside your logo, in the website footer and on proposals, never inside the mark, and the same row takes sector schemes and supplier accreditations as contracts come and go.
Two audiences, one logo
Candidates want to feel the agency is on their side; hiring managers want to feel the agency understands their business. A logo that leans too far towards either can lose the other. A useful test is to imagine it on a candidate’s phone in a text confirming an interview, and then on the cover of a fee proposal to a finance director. If it looks right in both places, it is doing its job.
Specialists have an advantage here. A construction recruiter can borrow the confident, practical look of the firms it supplies; a care recruiter can be warmer and calmer; a tech recruiter can be sharper and more digital. If you run several specialist desks under one company, decide early whether each desk gets its own mark or the shared logo with a desk name; a family of desk marks is a brand identity job.
Beyond handshakes, people icons and magnifying glasses
Handshakes say “deal”, which is not what candidates want to feel; rows of little people icons look like a stock chart of headcount; magnifying glasses and jigsaw pieces are the first ideas of countless search firms. Stronger routes are a short, memorable name set in distinctive type, a monogram built from your initials, or a symbol drawn from the sector you recruit for. Your name will be read in every job ad you ever post, so make the wordmark the hero.
Your £129 logo across both desks
Our Logo Design is £129 with all layouts included. The horizontal version heads CV covers, terms of business, timesheets and email signatures; the stacked version suits the office sign, event stands and the careers page; the icon becomes the job board and LinkedIn avatar, the worker app tile and the ID badge mark. You will have a one-colour file for timesheets and hi-vis, a 3D mockup, and versions ready for your ATS, your printer and your web developer. We put no ceiling on concepts or on revisions within your brief, and the copyright belongs to the agency as soon as the files are handed over. Template, website and other prices are on our pricing page.
Rebranding without breaking live adverts
Because every advert must carry your full name, a rebrand that changes the name means every live advert, job board profile and ATS email template changes on the same day. Pick a quieter week, list every board and template first, and tell clients’ accounts teams before the first invoice arrives under the new name, or payments can stall while their systems catch up. If only the logo changes, swap the avatars and templates first and let printed stock run down. First concepts reach you within 48 hours of your completed brief, and customers rate us 4.8/5 Excellent. The next advert you post should carry a mark that candidates and hiring managers both trust, and that starts when you order your recruitment agency logo.
