Last refreshed May 20, 2026 · gpt-4o-search-preview · web search ON

"Recommend a tech recruiter in London."

When marketing directors and founders ask ChatGPT that question, 43 of the 100 UK recruitment firms we tested never appear. See where you rank - or whether you rank at all.

100
Recruitment firms tested
43
Invisible to ChatGPT
420
ChatGPT responses analysed
76
Top score
Recruitment AI Visibility Index
How UK recruitment firms rank when ChatGPT is asked
gpt-4o-search-preview · 140 prompts · 420 responses · May 20, 2026
City
Category
Hide invisible firms
# Firm Score ↕ Visibility Mentions Best speciality

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Methodology
How this works - no smoke and mirrors
140 buyer-intent prompts · 14 specialities · 3 runs each · 420 responses

We ask ChatGPT 140 buyer-intent questions a marketing director, CEO or founder might genuinely ask when looking for a UK recruitment firm - across 14 specialities from tech to fractional, finance to creative. 10 questions per speciality, each run 3 times to capture variance. That's 420 responses analysed. If your firm gets mentioned, you score. If you never come up, you score zero. We don't take money to rank firms higher. We don't hide the queries - examples below. Run them yourself.

Q1
What are the best recruitment agencies in London?
Q2
Best tech recruitment agencies in London
Q3
Best AI recruitment agencies UK
Q4
Best marketing recruitment agencies in London
Q5
Best SaaS sales recruiters London
Q6
Best fractional executive recruiters UK
Q7
Best finance recruitment agencies London
Q8
Best legal recruitment agencies London
Q9
Best life sciences recruitment agencies UK
Q10
Best fashion recruitment agencies London
Q11
Best construction recruitment agencies London
Q12
Best insurance recruitment agencies UK
Q13
Best charity recruitment agencies UK
Q14
Best hospitality recruitment agencies London

Each question is run 3 times because ChatGPT does not return the same answer every time. The full set of 140 prompts is available on request.

How scores are calculated
Scored via gpt-4o-search-preview with web search enabled

Every ChatGPT response is parsed for every firm named. The score is weighted heavily on appearance, then on prominence, then on sector relevance. No manual ranking, no editorial weighting, no paid promotion.

45%
Appearance frequency
How often your firm is named across the 420 responses
30%
Mention position
Whether you're named first or lower down the answer
15%
Category relevance
How well the prompt's speciality matches your sector
10%
Cross-category strength
How many different specialities you show up in

Firms that never appear in any response score zero and are flagged Invisible.

Why some firms have more than 10 mentions
Deep vertical vs broad horizontal visibility - two real examples

The "Mentions" column counts unique prompts a firm appeared in across all 14 specialities, not just one. Each speciality has 10 prompts, so the cap per speciality is 10. The cap across the whole benchmark is 140. Two real firms make the trade-off visible.

Deep vertical visibility
Aquilas - rank #1, score 76
8 of 10 prompts in one speciality. Concentrated, dominant in their niche.
Non-Profit & Public Sector8 / 10
All other specialities0
Total unique prompts8
Broad horizontal visibility
Exec Capital - rank #17, score 52
Named in 6 different specialities. Visible everywhere, dominant nowhere.
Fractional & Exec Search5 / 10
Finance, CFO & Accounting4 / 10
General London2 / 10
Marketing, CMO & Growth2 / 10
Sales, GTM & SaaS1 / 10
Tech & Product1 / 10
Total unique prompts15

Neither pattern is better. A deep vertical signal tells buyers in that niche you're the answer. A broad horizontal signal tells buyers across many sectors you're credible. The score reflects both - appearance frequency (heaviest weight) plus cross-category strength.

How stable are ChatGPT's answers? Why we run each prompt 3 times
Measured run-to-run variance across all 140 prompts

ChatGPT does not return the same answer every time you ask the same question. We measured the variance across all 140 prompts. The numbers below are actual averages from our benchmark.

7.6
Firms per single run
A typical buyer-intent question gets ChatGPT to name about 7 or 8 recruitment firms.
9.8
Across all 3 runs combined
Combining the three answers reveals ~10 distinct firms per question. Some get dropped, others swapped in.
5.6
The stable core
~5-6 firms show up every single time. These are what a real buyer would consistently see.

In plain English: about 5 of every 8 firms named are rock solid, and the rest shift between runs. That's why a single run isn't enough. Three runs gives us a reliable "always named" signal for the stable core, partial credit for firms named in 1 or 2 runs of 3, and a strong negative result for firms that never surface across 420 attempts. Five runs would tighten it further but you hit diminishing returns. Three is the sweet spot for cost versus signal.

Caveats - what this is and isn't
Static snapshot, pulled 20 May 2026

AI visibility changes constantly - the model itself updates, web search results shift daily, and ChatGPT's answers vary by configuration. This benchmark used gpt-4o-search-preview via the OpenAI API with web search enabled - the closest API equivalent to ChatGPT.com's browsing experience. The underlying search backend the API uses may rank or cite sources slightly differently than what you'd see typing the same question into ChatGPT.com directly, so expect broadly similar but not byte-identical results. We refresh the full benchmark quarterly.

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