Candidate relationship management (CRM) platforms allow staffing firms to build deeper relationships with candidates and have complete visibility of their available talent. Those companies that optimize their CRM have a competitive advantage over those that don’t fully utilize this tool. For clarification, the acronym CRM should not be confused with customer relationship management as it is used with sales automation tools such as Salesforce.
CRM tools used for recruiting allow staffing recruiters to track, manage, organize, and engage candidates throughout the complete recruitment cycle. In today’s competitive candidate market, relationship building is central to effective recruiting and placement, and the better CRMs help staffing firms develop and nurture large candidate pools. In addition, all candidate interactions can be documented in the tool and create seamless touchpoints with them. The bottom line is that a well-designed CRM provides significant efficiencies for recruiters and allows them to invest more time with their high-priority candidates.
Communication options that your candidates prefer
In our world of instant communication, text messaging is a standard feature that has become a must on the best platforms. This allows recruiters the ability to text directly to candidates within the software. Candidates who utilize texting as their primary form of communication are much more likely to stay in touch and respond to texts than emails or calls. In essence, you’re speaking their language. In addition, each text is preserved in the communication history within each candidate profile.
Talent pool management
The top staffing firms are constantly building and nurturing candidates to stay engaged with them, and the leading CRMs provide a digital home for these relationships. In addition, recruiters can screen and pre-qualify top talent and categorize them properly before considering them for any open job orders. In addition, some CRMs are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to allow recruiters to identify candidates based on specific criteria quickly. Finally, most advanced softwares allow recruiters to bulk-communicate with an entire category of talent in real time using prepared message templates.
Advanced talent search
Search functionality within a CRM system must allow for quickly finding talent. Most leading platforms today enable recruiters to immediately identify the ideal candidates for a particular job order and confirm their availability. Some of the search functions should include Boolean search, tagging, rating systems, and unlimited filters to quickly narrow search criteria.
Benefits of a well-designed CRM
- Quick response to requisitions. In this candidate-driven market, success in filling orders is highly dependent on speed. Matching orders with qualified candidates quickly can make the difference between fills and misses.
- Improved recruiter conversion. By making better matches between candidates and orders, conversion rates for recruiters can be significantly improved. In addition, when candidate profiles contain deep data on specialties, experience, and preferences, high-quality placements can become the norm and not the exception.
- Better candidate experiences. For those CRMs designed as “candidate-first” platforms, the candidate experience is dramatically improved, resulting in much higher satisfaction ratings from candidates and contingent employees.
- Accelerated business growth. Higher quality placements result in retention, which drives growth. Also, improved efficiency supports greater productivity, improving revenue and gross profit.
Candidate relationship management platforms enable staffing firms to improve key hiring metrics across the board significantly. From instant communication to improved conversion rates, accelerated revenue and profit growth, and great candidate experience, the CRM is an essential ingredient for staffing firms to remain competitive.
Jay Mattern, TerraFirma Marketing CEO and former CEO of The Peoplelink Group, spent 32 years in the staffing industry. Under his leadership, Peoplelink had a compound annual growth rate of nearly 12% and became the 35th largest staffing firm in the United States. Jay was named to Staffing Industry Analysts’ 100 most prominent staffing leaders for three consecutive years. He is also a Certified Staffing Professional (CSP).
He retired from Peoplelink in 2019 and now brings his staffing background to the field of marketing communications. His primary objective is to help staffing firms become more effective at integrating marketing programs with their selling efforts, and to improve their recruiting results.
