Putting data at the heart of your recruitment agency.

 It’s no secret that what’s important to you as the agency owner won’t always be at the forefront of your recruiters’ minds. You need to combine the value you see in the CRM with what your team values in their day-to-day work and proactively show them that value from day one.

An onboarding process that is clear and easy to follow is crucial here. However, you need to remember what is important to the recruiters who are using the software day in and day out. A good CRM will help them to be more efficient, which means it will limit the amount of boring manual work, help them see everything more clearly, and, in turn, work faster and make more money. 

Reports and graphs will be your friends in that process – make sure you’re regularly reviewing the work your recruiters are doing through the tools within your system, embedding the tech into your normal processes and culture. If you measure and talk about CRM use and data health it will become a central part of every day. 

Module 4: Lesson 2

Personalisation is the key to creating a CRM-first culture within your agency – and with your CRM at the heart of your agency, you’re able to maximise your ROI and achieve more with less. Your CRM needs to be the first stop of all actions for your recruiters, and personalisation will help you get the buy-in from your team you need to make that happen. 

Module 4: Lesson 1

 Recruiters are like magpies – we like new and shiny things, such as fresh and exiting pieces of tech. Unfortunately, more often than not a new layer of software won't actually add any value. We tend to try new things, adopt software, and then go back to our old ways – or realise the software doesn’t provide as much value as we thought. It’s a never-ending cycle – and if your recruiters don’t see the value in the system, they won’t use it. Without them using it on a daily basis and in a consistent manner, you – and your agency – won’t see the returns on investment.

Recruiter engagement is, in simple terms, the adoption level of any technology your agency uses. With 41% of businesses saying employee resistance is the biggest challenge in adopting software, but those using a CRM seeing a 15% reduction in operational costs, it is vital that your recruiters are utilising your agency's recruitment software – and that you make it the single source of truth that all of their processes go through. You need to ask yourself whether your recruiters are actually utilising the CRM and making the most of it – otherwise, investing in software won’t bring you the increase in profits you’re looking for.

With so much new technology available at the tip of your fingers, it is not only hard to make the right choice – it can simply harm your agency if you use too much of it and try to utilise everything that is out there.

The key to embedding a CRM-first culture is implementing CRM-based reviews in your regular meetings – whether it’s weekly or monthly planning, strategy meetings, or quarterly reviews, ensure that the data you look at and results you discuss comes from within the CRM. 

Finally, it is important to remember the importance of onboarding. Simply expecting someone to pick up a new piece of software and use it correctly is foolhardy. A comprehensive onboarding process, with regular reviews that examine the use of the system, will set any new members of the team up for success. In order to achieve a CRM-first culture, it is vital that you invest time in training your recruiters to use the system for the benefit of them and your agency. 

The value of personalisation is paramount to successful adoption. Make sure your recruiters are able to customise the software to their needs: 

Another key aspect of creating a CRM-first culture is embedding your recruiters’ goals and KPIs into their profiles so they can review and track them at all times, instead of just remembering about their targets at the end of the month or quarter. It allows you to control the performance of your recruitment agency and make swift changes where possible – and also makes the team more empowered to notice gaps in their strategies.

Some of the ways to ensure that’s in place include:

If you want to reap the benefits of your tech, you need to create a CRM that is a single source of truth – a space where all of your funnels meet and other pieces of your tech stack integrate with. If you can manage all of your operations and keep all of the data in one place, you’re able to increase your efficiency, productivity, and profits. But choosing the right CRM alone is not enough – you also need to embed it within your company culture. 

In order to get your recruiters engaged with the software, you need to start from the top. If your leadership team doesn’t use the software, how can you expect recruiters to use it? Remember to include your directors in the decision-making process before you actually invest in software and then get them onboarded as quickly as possible.

Then ensure that they’re implementing regular check-ins with their teams and follow new processes so that the software use is embedded in the culture. Remember to openly celebrate successes – and not jus the ones you’re used to. Put focus on placements made from existing candidates or increased CRM activity. When creating a CRM-first culture, everything you do, measure and talk about should come from the CRM itself.