When we surveyed recruitment agency leaders across the UK and Ireland, a clear trend emerged: Industry leaders are forecasting growth in 2024 – but the majority of them are shifting their strategy to organic sourcing. With job boards’ prices rising as much as 30-40% for some agency owners at the end of 2023, it’s not surprising that only 20% are planning to focus their resources and attention on job boards as their main candidate attraction strategy this year. But how do you find the delicate balance between good old job boards and diversifying your attraction channels for the maximum impact?
Collect and enrich data
67% of the surveyed recruitment agency leaders told us that they’re planning to re-engage their existing database in 2024 to find candidates for their roles – and for a good reason. If you use your CRM correctly, you’re not only saving time spent on relentless advert writing, browsing through hundreds of potential candidates, and sorting CVs but also limiting the amount of money you spend per placement. Think of it that way – by looking at relevant and rich data, your recruiters can save loads of time that they would otherwise spend on unproductive sourcing, sifting through CVs, or contacting cold candidates. Across all of the recruiters within your team and for an extended period of time, the savings will stack up incredibly quickly! This will then amplify your results with half the amount of work.
With a warm database of candidates you’ve been automatically nurturing, you will get better value from each job advert you post – which means you will need fewer job ads in the long run, lowering your costs.
“With our old system, the CRM was the last resort. Now our recruiters are choosing to create
everything within Firefish, look at the potential matches, and then jump into the existing candidates
to nurture the data that we've already built up. Only then do they reach out to external sources, if
needed.”
In 2023 Firefish users received over a third of applications from candidates who were already in their systems. This means less money spent on job boards for the same – or higher – number of placements.
So how can you effectively collect and enrich data for your agency?
How to effectively source candidates from social channels
70% of recruitment agencies are planning to use social sourcing this year as their main candidate attraction strategy in 2024. Channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Instagram are increasingly popular amongst recruiters because they host a variety of potential candidates.
- Choose the right platforms: Start by determining where your current organic applicants come from. Make sure you take into account the industry you’re in and the types of roles you recruit for – after all, a CEO looking for a new high-level role will not spend their time online in the same space a fresh graduate does. Then, create candidate personas with notes on where they can be found online – to know which platforms to target for which candidate type.
- Establish a strong employer brand: 86% of job seekers search for company reviews before applying for a role – and the majority won’t apply if the brand is negatively rated.
Discover how to create a strong recruitment employer brand here! - Make use of video: It’s no secret that short-form video content is on the rise, and recruitment is no exception. 73% of consumers prefer to learn about a service from video content – and job postings including video receive 34% more applications!
Learn to create top-converting recruitment videos here!
How to warm up your database
Candidate sourcing is just the first step. Once you have a candidate in your database you need to learn to use your CRM as an active tool, not just a space keeping all your data.
- Qualify and enrich your database: As daunting as it sounds, the first step to a warm candidate database that you can use as a recruitment tool is to get rid of all the dead weight that has been sitting there for months (or years!). It is then vital to qualify and enrich new candidates. By understanding who your agency is likely to place you can focus on nurturing the right candidates and avoid wasting time.
- Make them feel welcome: Did you know that 75% of the workforce is made up of passive candidates? Understanding this will help you to better manage your CRM. In order to be front of mind when a candidate moves in the market you need to have been in touch with them regularly. For all candidates in your database, it is important to consider how you can demonstrate your expertise. Sending some relevant automated emails with expert insight from your industry– for example for CV writing – will help to keep them warm for when the time is right.
- Keep it relevant: With the right tools, it’s easy to automate communications without missing out on the relevancy. In order to do that, you need to create talent pools within your system: Groups of candidates within your database that are divided by experience, interests, and job preferences. Once you’ve set them up, you can send relevant communications to each individual group – keeping it both efficient for you and your recruiters, and relevant to the candidates, so they know you care about who they are.
