Putting data at the heart of your recruitment agency.

Module 2

The key to making the most of AI and automation is understanding that it will only ever be useful if the data within your CRM is active and high-quality. If your recruitment software is full of dead data or half-filled candidate profiles with missing information, all the automation features will become useless because they won’t be able to give you the most accurate answers. 

AI and automation are only as powerful as the information you feed them, so make sure these key areas are up to scratch: 

Forecasts suggest that 30% of all jobs will be automated  by 2030, but as agency leaders, there are two paths that you can follow as these advances start to make an impact. As we’ve established already, the role your recruiters play in your agency needs to shifting with the evolving technology in order to maximise the return on investment. Let’s explore some key differences:

The first step to implementing AI and automation into your agency and increasing your time savings is identifying the current processes and actions your recruiters take on a daily basis which could be easily replaced with technology. These include things like:

With automation, the key benefit is that your recruiters can now only focus on activities that cause real impact for your agency – meaning generate revenue, leaving all the manual admin tasks to your recruitment software and AI. Your strategy should focus on quality of your actions and processes instead of quantity – so gone are the days where you push your team to make as many cold calls as possible in order to find clients or candidates and “work the numbers”.

 After you’ve identified the areas that could be automated, it’s time to implement the technology into your processes. This includes:

79% of industry professionals believe that AI will soon be sophisticated enough to make full hiring decisions – which poses a threat to recruiters all over. There is no denying that artificial intelligence can significantly improve your team’s efficiency and effectiveness, helping you save time and resources and focus on what matters most. 

An engagement strategy only works if it’s well, engaging and it’s important to remember that generally people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Meaning your window for impact is narrower than ever.

To ensure your engagement strategy delivers value and most importantly, future revenue, it’s important to consider how each stage and communication within the strategy considers the following: 

Module 2: Lesson 3

In order to make the most out of your sequences, you need to optimise them for success. Some of the practices that bring the highest return on investment include:

Module 2: Lesson 2

There are many different types of automation that can help you speed up your processes and achieve better results, faster.

Hover over the tile to learn more…

The key aspect of implementing AI and automation into your agency is improving efficiency and being able to handle a bigger workload, not replacing the essential human element of recruitment. By reducing the administrative tasks you can make recruiters more efficient by giving them more time to build human relationships. Some of the other key benefits of automating your processes include: 

When it comes to engagement campaign distribution, there is no one-size model. You have to be where your target audience is whilst also using a multi-channel approach.

For example, if you recruit Ground Workers in London then it’s unlikely your target audience are going to be on LinkedIn and instead are more likely to engage with a WhatsApp group and some Emails.

On the other side of this, if you specialise in SaaS Sales Roles then it’s highly likely that LinkedIn will be your primary channel for candidate engagement. Best practice here is to identify primary and secondary channels for nurturing your ideal candidates and build touchpoints using a mix of both into your strategy.

With AI and automation taking over the market, the role of your recruiters needs to change in order to make the most out of the current market conditions. If you want to increase your profitability, you have to utilise the technology available and shift your recruiters’ focus to the parts of their job that technology can’t do for them, such as relationship building. Thanks to automation, your agency can now achieve more and handle a higher workload with fewer resources. This means that automating your manual processes frees up your recruiters’ time to work on candidate and client nurturing and working with more accounts than ever before without sacrificing the quality of their work. This increases their efficiency, which in turn boosts your profits.

 In basic terms, an engagement strategy is the behaviour of keeping in regular communication with candidates and contacts.

It’s important to remember that only a tiny percentage of all candidates are ‘in-market’ at any given time and the same is true for hiring managers. In this chapter, we'll explore the best and most effective strategies for keeping your candidates engaged and warm at all times.

Module 2: Lesson 1

Sequencing is the key to optimised outreach and boosted sales. Automating processes allows your recruiters to do more with their time so that they can achieve higher results. By making each recruiter more efficient in this manner, you can do more without increasing your agency's headcount. Some of the key benefits of sequencing include: 

1.  Are you speaking to your candidate profiles or are you talking about things that are important to you – i.e placements?
   Some of the worst engagement campaigns are impersonable and skip the early stages. For example, ‘I have this role, it’s £50k basic salary plus perks and I think you are a good fit’. This is a conversation much further down the engagement funnel as at this stage it’s unlikely you know what the candidate wants, their personal situation and most importantly, you haven’t built trust.
2. Do you understand what your candidates are interested in and like?
   Take a marketing candidate for example, you could be sending them all marketing roles when they are only interested in product marketing roles. How do you define this in your database profile and use it to send relevant information, invites and insights related to their interests. 
3.  Is there a clear understanding of what they don’t like?
   Dislikes are even more powerful than likes when it comes to engagement. The quickest way to disengage a candidate is to send them something they don’t like.
   Consider standing out from the crowd – invite high-value candidates to industry WhatsApp groups for knowledge sharing, send them recent trends from placements made based on their preferences.
4. How relevant and necessary is your communication?
   Have you ever purchased something online and been bombarded with email marketing from the brand ever since, of course you have, we all have. The chances are you haven’t unsubscribed but instead just delete every time you seen one hit your mailbox.
   It’s vital that you understand the value and necessity of each bit of communication so as not to alienate candidates from your brand. The best way to do this? Dive into preferences – ask them.

So someone doesn’t want to hear from you anymore? Great! As long as you aren’t receiving an unsubscribe rate of more than 3% then you have no cause for concern.

The best thing you can do with candidates who unsubscribe or don’t engage with your campaigns is to add them to a suppression list. Think of the data structure for enrichment in module 1 (hyperlink this) and make use of your Bronze bucket as empty profiles and those who have unsubscribed. 

This will allow you to filter your database and strategically target those who you have a clearer understanding of and those who want to hear from your brand. Resulting in an increased placement rate from existing candidates. 

Anything your agency does should be measurable. It’s just about defining what your goals and measurables are. This is where the importance of your single source of truth really comes into play.

Running your engagement strategy across multiple channels and platforms is great but only if it begins and ends in one place – your CRM. 

Therefore it’s vital that you have a system and reporting structure in place to easily track:

The key to a great sequencing process is to have segmented and active data within your CRM. Without it, your sequence will be full of unengaged candidates or clients and results will suffer – or you’ll be sending messages to candidates and clients who don’t fit the role criteria.

For improved sourcing, start by segmenting your candidates into relevant talent pools based on their experience, salary expectations, interests, and location. 

Then personalise each sequence to specific talent pools, increasing the response rates and engagement. You can increase meeting rates by 91% with just 1 personalisation variable added! You can repeat this process for all your business development sequences.

Here's an example of sequence structure. There is no one-size-fits-all approach though, so it's important to test what works well for your agency. Experiment with re-jigging the channel order or with the number of steps and days left in between. 

This graph illustrates the performance of BD channels based on continuously analysed data from 52 million pieces of outreach sent across Sourcewhale. With phone and email clearly in the lead, it’s vital that your agency utilises these in your BD strategy – but one source alone is never enough for a successful outcome. 

This graph shows channel performance for candidate sourcing – and if you think the same rules apply for sourcing as for BD, you’re in for a surprise! Whilst the phone is still performing strong, the number one channel candidates use is InMail – so you might want to adapt your strategy! Email is also a lot closer behind here – but remember that follow-up is key. Follow-up emails account for 82% of email bookings!

Sequencing is the key to effective business development and sourcing  in recruitment – and if your recruitment software does not integrate with your CRM, you’re not only losing time, but also valuable data that could increase your efficiency and profits.

What is sequencing?

An outreach sequence combines email, InMail, LinkedIn, phone calls and messaging to create a series of touchpoints that help drive engagement. It’s a great way to nurture relationships with prospects and increase the likelihood of having real conversations that ultimately, lead to more revenue. 

 Most importantly, an efficient and well-executed engagement strategy improves agency profitability by enabling recruiters to make more placements from your existing database.

But it’s important to remember that people do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic. 

Besides profitability, there are other significant benefits to implementing an effective engagement strategy such as the ability to:

• Efficiency – reduces manual effort and speeds up processes
• Operational cost savings – quicker wins, less overheads.
• Improved accuracy- reducing the margin for human error.
• Scalability – whilst maintaining profit margins
• Data-driven decisions – provides valuable insights for analysis to improve outcomes. 

• Job advert writing
• Recruiter summaries
• Manually adding prospects to the system
• Social media posts creation
• CV formatting 

• Integrating AI ChatGPT into your CRM, so it can generate job adverts automatically within your software in line with your agency’s tone and expectations
• Utilising AI to write recruiter summaries 

• Multichannel approach: Automate a consistent multichannel process and test what works best for you! Using multiple channels in your BD can increase your response rate by 56%!
• Utilise phone outreach: Different channels offer different ways to personalise and be human – the phone is a key converting channel, so use it! 
• Providing value: Lead with value and relevance, this will get you noticed more than personalisation alone. 
• Consistent follow-up process: If you're only following up once or twice with prospects, you're missing out on opportunities. 71% of conversations start from a follow-up! 
• Reactivity: Be reactive! If a contact is engaging with your outreach, strike while the iron is hot. 

1. Build a predictable future talent pipeline, forecasting what percentage of your existing database are likely to move in-market each quarter based on previous activity.
2. Win faster than your competitors by quickly identifying in-market candidates from your database and matching them to newly opened roles.
3. Increase agency advocacy by remaining front of mind and providing insights or assistance even when candidates are out-of-market. 

• Engaged Candidates
• Engagement by Level
• Unengaged Candidates
• Candidates in Pipeline by Engagement Level
• Revenue/Placements per Campaign
• Channel Success – Placements by Source