Building Switch Roles: The Retail and Hospitality Recruitment Platform Built Differently

The Client

Switch Roles is a UK job board built specifically for the retail and hospitality sectors. It was created to give employers a fairer, more affordable way to reach candidates, and to give retail and hospitality professionals a dedicated place to find their next role. From household names like KFC, Burger King, and Card Factory to growing independent retailers, Switch Roles has built a client base that spans the full breadth of the industry.

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The Brief

Switch Roles was born from a genuine belief that the online retail and hospitality recruitment market deserved better. The business was founded as a collaboration between Childsey, leading retail and hospitality recruitment specialists Zachary Daniels, and over 50 investors from across the retail industry who backed the concept from the start. Childsey was brought in as the strategic and creative lead, responsible for bringing the platform to life from brand through to build.

The remit was to build everything from scratch:

• Conceive and launch a retail and hospitality recruitment platform
• Design and develop the brand identity, messaging, and tone of voice
• Build and maintain the platform
• Develop and execute a strategy to attract and onboard employers
• Grow a candidate audience organically through SEO and content
• Establish the operational processes to manage job ingestion, employer onboarding, and platform maintenance

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Our Approach

Brand and Identity

We built the Switch Roles brand from a blank page. The brief was to create something that felt different from the generic job boards dominating the market. Clean, confident, and sector-specific. The identity centres on a bold typographic logo with a custom icon that plays on the idea of changing direction, a natural fit for a platform built around helping people find their next role.

Alongside the visual identity, we developed a full brand messaging framework and tone of voice. Switch Roles needed to speak to two distinct audiences, employers and candidates, in a way that felt human, direct, and grounded in the realities of retail and hospitality work. Every piece of copy, from job page descriptions to employer communications, was written to that standard.

• Full brand identity including logo, colour palette, typography, and brand guidelines
• Brand messaging framework and tone of voice documentation
• Visual language developed for use across the website, social media, and employer communications

Platform Build

The platform was built to get Switch Roles to market quickly, with a clean candidate experience and a job listing architecture designed to perform in organic search from the start. Job pages are structured to rank for retail and hospitality-specific search terms across the UK, with every listing acting as an indexed page building long-term SEO value.

• Custom website build covering public-facing pages, job listing pages, and company profile pages
• Database architecture to manage employer records, job listings, and applications
• Automated job ingestion pipeline pulling live listings directly from employer careers pages
• Application routing to employer teams

Employer Acquisition and Onboarding

With no existing client base, we built the employer side of the platform from scratch, drawing on Zachary Daniels' deep network and sector relationships to accelerate early growth. The approach centred on a fast, low-friction onboarding process that made it easy for retailers and hospitality operators to get their jobs live quickly.

• Direct outreach to HR and talent acquisition teams across UK retail and hospitality, supported by Zachary Daniels' industry relationships
• Onboarding process designed to get employers live within 24 to 48 hours of sign-up
• Job ingestion set up on a per-employer basis, tailored to each client
• Ongoing employer communications managed throughout the relationship

SEO and Candidate Growth

Candidate acquisition was driven primarily through organic search. Every job listing published on the platform became an indexed page, building a growing library of sector-specific content that surfaces to active job seekers searching for retail and hospitality roles across the UK.

• SEO-optimised job listing pages with structured data and clean URL architecture
• Employer and category landing pages targeting high-intent search terms
• Google Search Console and GA4 monitoring to track performance and identify opportunities

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Results

Switch Roles grew steadily from launch to become a platform with genuine traction across UK retail and hospitality recruitment. Within its first year, the numbers demonstrated consistent upward momentum across every measure.

Platform

The platform reached 91 onboarded clients including some of the most recognisable names in UK retail and hospitality. The platform consistently maintains over 5,000 live jobs at any one time, giving candidates a relevant and current pool of roles to search and apply for.

Organic search

In year one, the platform generated 4.61 million Google impressions and over 313,000 sessions on the website. Organic search became the primary driver of candidate traffic, validating the SEO-first approach to audience growth. Job pages rank consistently for retail and hospitality job search terms across the UK.

Applications

Nearly 50,000 applications have been processed through the platform. The volume and consistency of applications demonstrated that the candidate audience was engaged and actively job hunting, not just browsing.

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Ongoing

Switch Roles continues to evolve in response to the needs of the market. Childsey remains closely involved in strategy, brand, and platform development, with a focus on continuously improving the experience for both employers and candidates as the platform grows.