Better Candidate Experience
40%
more revenue
Personalisation generates
of consumers get frustrated when they don't get
76%
71%
of consumers expect personalisation
Data-driven Decisions
Improved Collaboration
Increased Placements
According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers expect personalisation, and 76% get frustrated when they don’t find it.
But did you know companies that excel at personalisation generate 40% more revenue from those activities?
With CRM automation, recruiters can send personalised messages, schedule follow-ups and track interactions over time.
By incorporating AI in recruitment, recruiters can engage with candidates - which is better for your agency.
Engaged recruiters are better positioned to provide candidates with timely feedback and updates, enhancing the candidate experience and ensuring a smoother hiring process.
And most importantly, AI and CRM automation means recruiters can handle more candidates, ultimately generating more revenue.
The best CRM automation software provides analytical tools to help recruiters monitor performance, identify trends and assess the effectiveness of their strategies.
Recruiter engagement with these tools ensures decisions are made about candidates based on solid data rather than guesswork, leading to improved outcomes.
By focusing on data and analytics, your agency can identify which channels and activities generate effective ROI for your recruitment strategy.
Teamwork makes the dream work.
When recruiters use Firefish’s recruitment CRM systems consistently, team collaboration is optimised.
Recruiters can easily track where candidates are in the recruitment process, reducing miscommunication, fostering teamwork and ultimately leads to faster, more effective hiring.
62% of high-growth leaders said they would like to use AI to assist with candidate sourcing, which will help with positive candidate placements further down the line - with agencies using CRM automation seeing an increase of 30% revenue per recruiter.
B2B marketing strategist Mike Gospe once said: “Whoever understands the customer best, wins.”
This couldn’t be more true for recruitment agencies looking to find and place the best talent, but also hoping to stand out from competitors in their field.
Firefish’s Job Flow Index: Recruitment Statistics found the job market is showing signs of job market recovery, with a 76% increase in the number of jobs created, and a 58% increase in the number of placements made.
Benchmark both agency and recruiter performance against anonymised data from others in your industry with Industry Benchmarking only available on Firefish.
Maintain a competitive edge with recruitment reporting that enables you to identify strategic priorities, analyse average revenue per recruiter, growth forecasts, and more.
Understanding where you are in relation to the market is vital - which is why it's essential to keep up to date with market data for your sector and make use of a recruitment industry benchmarking tool.
By using data to understand your position in the market you will be able to more effectively set strategies for profitable growth. Recruitment as an industry can be significantly affected by economic changes - but the ability to track and measure sales against an industry standard will enable you to better understand agency performance objectively, enabling you to see what is and isn't working internally.
Benchmarking: Where does your agency sit in the market?
Perm placements made in Construction, Trades & Labour
Compliance and Documentation
Recruiting CRM analytics and reporting are changing how companies hire people.
To stay ahead in a fast and competitive job market, high-growth agencies make decisions based on data - not just assumptions.
In fact, Firefish data found 54% of agencies want AI to enhance reporting capabilities in 2025.
54% of high-growth agencies want AI to enhance reporting
The Future of the Recruitment Industry Report | 2025 found 41% of high-growth agencies would likely use AI and automation capabilities for their compliance needs.
Firefish’s CRM automation helps with compliance by streamlining candidate onboarding and document management, ensuring all necessary documentation is completed and stored correctly without manual intervention.
The candidate onboarding portal enables recruiters to get candidates in front of hiring managers or on site quicker than traditional onboarding processes by removing time blocks in the placement process.
Make informed decisions and accurately measure your agency's performance with advanced recruitment reporting features.
Giving you access to your recruitment data through fully branded, customisable reports. Empowering you to delve deep into your Recruitment CRM, pinpoint high-performing activities, and accelerate data-driven growth.
Safeguard your agency’s data with built-in recruitment compliance with Firefish, ensuring water-tight compliance with seamless workflows woven through your CRM.
We're finding that we're filling roles with existing candidates a lot easier, because the consultants are willing to use the system first rather than posting it externally straight away because that’s what they’ve always done.
Lori Taylor
Marketing Manager
CRM automation and AI in recruitment is here to stay - but software is only as good as the information recruiters put into it.
That’s why recruiters need to be engaged and educated about the benefits of recruitment CRMs and supporting AI & automation tools, because when used effectively, the results cannot be matched.
Linear Recruitment, like a lot of agencies, has often gone externally first when recruiting new candidates. This left them spending money on new roles and wasting time trying to find fresh candidates.
Recruiting CRM analytics go beyond simply tracking job applications, Firefish’ Recruitment Reporting unlocks real-time data analytics, helping recruitment agencies understand performance metrics, identify bottlenecks and optimise operations.
Our recruiting CRM insights helps agencies to improve decision-making and predict trends, ensuring your agency is proactive rather than reactive, taking the guesswork out of your agency’s potential growth.
Analytics and Reporting
By using CRM automation in your recruitment CRM systems, recruiters are empowered to proactively manage their candidate pool, enabling them to find the best talent faster, inevitably matching them to appropriate roles more efficiently thanks to the help of AI in recruitment.
CRM automation and using AI in recruitment isn’t going anywhere, which is why agencies need streamlined processes between humans and technology, to identify the best talent faster, hiring candidates ahead of competitors, generating more agency revenue per recruiter.
Putting data at the heart of your recruitment agency.
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According to the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s (REC) ‘UK recruitment industry status report 2023/24’, 41% of UK recruitment businesses already use AI for recruitment, with 26% planning to adopt AI technologies within the next year - reflecting a significant increase from 32% in 2021.​
Firefish data found in 2024:
- 33% of recruitment agencies reduced their headcount
- 24% of recruitment agencies grew headcount
Our data insights detailed that high-growth agencies were more likely to have decreased headcount by 25-60% - a 10.7% uplift from 2023.
In fact, 7% of agency leaders forecast a reduction in headcount in 2025 too.
CRM automation removes slow admin tasks from a recruiter’s workload, enhances reporting, facilitates database management and so much more.
Utilising AI in recruitment enables agencies to focus on efficiency, rather than headcount growth, becoming more agile, and better-placed to react quickly to market fluctuations.
Effective use of AI and automation in a recruitment agency allows recruiters to focus on the activities that matter, establishing human relationships and revenue-generating activities. The fact that we're seeing high-growth agencies reducing headcount indicates that they are successfully using new technologies to empower each recruiter to do more with less time wasted on manual tasks.
Success looks different for recruitment agencies in 2025.
Intertwining technology into the recruitment agency process enables organisations to amplify the skills of human recruiters - meaning in 2025, recruitment agency growth will be measured in revenue, not in headcount.
By adopting AI in recruiting processes, agencies are able to streamline processes, save time and money and use data to heighten the probability of candidate success.
In 2024, many recruitment agencies chose to invest in technology to help them do more with fewer recruiters, enabling them to improve efficiencies and focus on maximising revenue generating activity.
Measured in Revenue, Not in Headcount
How has the headcount at your agency changed in 2024?
​The World Economic Forum: Future of Jobs Report 2025 forecasts that the job market will grow by just 7% in the next 5 years to 2030.
With this in mind, how can recruitment agencies use CRMs and technology to their advantage and maximise revenue from the available market?
The answer is: analytics, automation and AI - three essentials for success in 2025 and beyond.
In recruitment efficiency and personal relationships are crucial to success. AI & automation create both opportunity and risk when it comes to the personality of an agency and it's recruiters. The recruitment agencies that succeed in the AI enabled market will be those who leverage AI and automation to increase efficiency while maintaining and enhancing the human touch.
AI & automation:
The future of recruitment
Firefish’s Future of the Recruitment Industry Report | 2025 solidifies this.
Our data found that high-growth recruitment agencies are utilising AI in recruitment processes and CRM automation to reap the rewards afforded by technology. But why?
AI in recruitment and CRM automation enables agencies to focus on maximising revenue generating activity by optimising workloads and streamlining processes. But the market leaders also recognise that their specialism is in the human relationships. High-growth agencies are using AI & Automation to increase the time that recruiters can spend with clients and candidates, not replace it.
Agencies using AI for candidate sourcing
In this article, we take a closer look at the benefits of incorporating AI in recruitment processes and CRM automation, by complementing the skills of employees with technology, in turn increasing the Return on Investment (ROI) per recruiter.
Let’s see what the future of recruitment holds.
Firefish’s CRM automation software streamlines the process of collecting and enriching candidate data.
Our AI-powered recruitment CRM system matches candidates with roles faster by analysing their profiles and the job requirements, allowing recruiters to focus on the human element needed to build relationships, enabling them to move away from tedious data entry tasks.
Of course, in a competitive market, sourcing and hiring the best talent means going beyond qualifications - agencies must look at the skills of candidates too.
Skills based hiring will continue to be important, but it can be difficult for recruiters to identify key skills without a comprehensive exploration of CVs in their inbox.
Increasing Recruiter and Candidate Contact
AI & automation tools in recruitment CRMs have been proven to reduce lengthy admin tasks for recruiters. But this isn't just about doing more with less, it is about unlocking wasted time to allow recruiters do what they do best - creating relationships.
Throughout 2024, AI became increasingly more powerful and prevalent across recruitment CRMs - and the recruitment agencies hoping to be successful in 2025 will take note.
By leveraging AI and automation, recruitment agencies will significantly reduce administrative tasks by streamlining various processes and workflows.
The successful agencies of 2025 will be those who put this regained time to good use and increase the human contact that their agency can give to clients and candidates.
This was spelled out clearly in the responses to the Future of the Recruitment Industry Report | 2025, which indicated a clear focus on AI tools that remove admin, and a lesser desire to use any AI & automation tools that interrupts human interactions. Let's take a look at the responses.
Firefish’s AI-powered CV Parser helps pull candidate skills to the forefront, combining AI in recruitment processes and enhanced human interaction.
Candidate applications will rise as AI continues to develop, but technology can help recruiters cut through the noise in the market.
Recruiters will need to use CRM automation and AI in recruitment processes to identify the best talent to consider.
In which areas of the recruitment process would your agency like to see enhanced AI capabilities in the next 12-24 months?
Candidate Data Management
CRM automation systems help recruitment agency CRMs track and analyse data more efficiently, offering greater insight into how your recruitment agency is performing against competitors.
Our Future of Recruitment Report 2025 data found 42% of high-growth agencies would like AI to enhance data management systems - but how does AI adoption help with data management?
42% of high-growth agencies would like AI to enhance data management systems
The biggest challenge for recruiters in the current candidate rich market is identifying quality candidates from the hundreds of applicants. This problem has been compounded by the accessibility of AI tools which allow candidates to submit applications in huge volumes in a matter of minutes. The challenge for recruiters in the AI-era is identifying the quality people behind the AI-powered noise. Thankfully, AI and automation tools can help recruiters identify the high value candidates in their CRM.
An enriched database means agencies can rely on the intelligence of AI to highlight the best candidates for a role.
In fact, Firefish data found 61% of high-growth agencies intend to use AI to assist with database management in 2025.
Did you know, in January, 34% of applications were made by existing candidates, and 87% of those applications were generated by Job Alerts?
Similarly in February, 35% of applications were made by existing candidates, and 92% of applications from re-engaged candidates were generated by Job Alerts.
Enriched data highlights quality candidates
Recruitment Agency Leadership
Increasing recruitment agency revenue through AI & CRM Automation
Include the selling points on the CV itself, as it may be forwarded to others.
​
There is power in your recruitment CRM - it’s important not to forget about existing candidates in your database.
In 2025, 67% of high-growth agencies intend to re-engage their existing database to find candidates.
With Firefish, collecting and enriching candidate data in your recruitment CRM becomes efficient, allowing you to build a rich database of quality candidates who are ready to place.
Automating recruitment CRMs and operations have been proven to enhance candidate engagement - but how?
CRM automation increases the number of qualified candidates, accelerates hiring speed, reduces paperwork and delegates repetitive tasks to software, so recruiters can focus on what recruiters do best - finding the best talent.
Firefish’s CRM automation tool boosts candidate engagement by sending personalised content, job alerts and updates, reducing manual outreach, ensuring candidates remain connected with your agency.
Our data shows that Firefish recruitment CRM users who send at least three automated emails in their candidate nurture campaigns saw an average response rate of 356% compared to campaigns with just one email.
Firefish’s Applicant Tracking System software gives recruitment agencies the opportunity to take complete control of their candidate pipeline with customisable applicant tracking workflows designed for every type of recruitment.
Our software provides automated workflows that help with candidate progression, reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks like email tracking, interview scheduling and communication.
By automating these processes, agencies can reduce administrative overhead and improve recruiter efficiency.
What will be your main candidate attraction strategies for 2025?
Everything is so much simpler with Firefish. It’s like it brought us into the 21st century.
What we wanted was a CRM system that would help us grow and that's exactly what we're seeing with Firefish.
Lori Taylor
Marketing Manager
45%
of agencies will focus on content generation
35%
of applications in February were made by existing candidates
61%
of agencies will use AI for database management