Considering ways of adapting your company to become more efficient? Automation could be your new best friend.

5 ways recruiters are using automations to adapt

May 30, 2020

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic many companies are being forced to adapt for survival. Have you considered automating your CRM as part of your strategy? Not only can it help you accelerate growth but it can also create a better client and candidate experience.

Reading time: 2 minutes

The ability to adapt has become increasingly important for businesses in 2020. The idea is nothing new – Yellow Pages and Lego are just a couple of companies who have transformed their business models throughout the years - but following the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic many companies are now being forced to adapt for survival.

Simon Sinek said in a recent video that we should see the situation we’re currently going through “not as the end, but rather part of the journey”. Right now, we have the benefit of being able to learn from those who have failed to adapt and in turn, survive. We’re seeing some great examples of companies who have already been adapting – local and independent grocery stores offering home deliveries; bars offering ‘to-go cocktails’; Italian restaurants selling bags of flour, and even using their pizza ovens to make face shields to sell to hospitals.

Adapting your recruitment company

Adaption isn’t something to be scared of - the recruitment industry is always evolving. Brian Cunningham (Director – Allen Recruitment) remembers how things used to be done, “20 years ago we had a wall full of CVs, printed out and stored alphabetically in binders; every time we got a role in, we would look through rolodexes for each candidate and then find their CV.”.

The idea of this will seem alien to many recruiters out there now but without being open to change and embracing technology, things would have never progressed.

Thanks to recruiting automation, the opportunity to adapt available to those in the staffing industry has never been greater. Whether you want to improve pre-hire, post-hire, or data hygiene, there’s an automation to help you refine your processes and eliminate efficiencies. Not only will you save time, you’ll have happier clients and candidates.

The first step (if you haven’t already) is to get yourself into a mindset that is open to the latest technologies and get acquainted with the recruiting automation landscape. Often, companies are limited in what they do only by their imagination – having some knowledge of automations others are using, and what is possible, will go a long way in helping you to review your processes and spot areas for improvement.

Five ways that automation can help you transform your business

If you’re looking for some ideas to get you started in automating your CRM, look no further. Here are just some of the ways that staffing businesses are using automation:

Internal process improvement (courtesy Matthew Banbury, Operations Director - Pioneer Selection)

Recruiters are expensive and only getting more so. The more time they spend on repetitive busy work, the less time they have to engage your clients and candidates.

We have automated over 200 tasks as part of our Bullhorn CRM. We automate the client and candidate sales journey from first touch all the way to placement as well as keeping our database clean and tidy.

One of the ways in which we’re using these automations is to send automated notifications to our users to make things run more smoothly internally. For example, maybe a recruiter has added 10 candidates to a shortlist but hasn’t submitted the CV’s, or they’ve sent a CV but haven’t followed the CV with a call to the client – we’ve setup automated reminders to let them know they still have outstanding activities to do, keeping them on track. Going back to complete these tasks can often be overlooked by busy recruiters but we’ve really noticed a difference since implementing these reminders.

Autoresponders (courtesy Robert Mann, Enterprise Consultant - EmployStream)

One of the key automations a staffing and recruiting firm can add is an autoresponder – an email or text that goes out promptly after a candidate applies to a job or an online “contact me form”.

I speak with at least 100 different agencies per year and all of them acknowledge that their recruiters do not respond consistently to inbound job applicants or leads.

An autoresponder immediately creates a lot of efficiencies:

1. Candidates receive immediate acknowledgment;

2. Depending on the vertical, adding a pre-qualification survey prevents unqualified candidates from getting time on your recruiters’ calendars; and

3. Adding a calendar booking link to the autoresponder email streamlines the entire recruiting process.

In terms of bang for your buck, an autoresponder improves the candidate experience, protects your recruiters time, and streamlines the recruiting process.

Post-placement engagement (courtesy Leigh Clarke, Commercial Manager – Kyloe Partners)

Where I’ve seen recruiters get real value out of automation is in post-placement. Once a placement is made its easy to move on to the next requirement and the next candidate, but automations can be used effectively to maintain effective communication while improving your ability to make further placements down the line with your existing network.

For permanent placements recruiters can automate ‘check-in’ tasks or emails with placed candidates to ensure they have all the correct information before starting, and feel valued as they settle in at their new company. These can be used to strengthen relationships, help to proactively highlight issues (avoiding any painful rebate conversations) and also use surveys to strengthen processes.

For contract placements it’s even simpler – automate your communications, status updates and task creation to ensure you’re on top of your current contract book, end-dates, extensions and availability so you’re effective at getting the most value out of your network. It’s something we all wish we could juggle on our own, but some carefully considered automations can help recruiters to prioritise their workload and increase their billings!

Valuable insights...

Communication tracking (courtesy Daniel Fox, Channel Marketing Director – CloudCall): Good businesses rely on data, insight and facts to help guide decisions. To achieve this, it’s important that you gather data on everything your team is doing – and that includes every conversation with clients and candidates. CloudCall’s ability to capture valuable information about your teams activities and post that straight into Bullhorn means every KPI you set and every report you run will be based on one reliable source of truth. And right now, with most people working from home, that’s more important than ever. Your remote workforce can work just as they would in the office – with collaborative instant messaging that keeps communications open - and you have full visibility of what’s going on.

Data capture (courtesy Joe McGuire, Global Sales Director – cube19): Automation is key for helping recruitment companies stay competitive and this is for a number of reasons. Firstly, we need to present accurate, real-time information to managers and consultants alike, a consolidated view of the business at it stands and where the opportunities lie. Automating data capture is far more potent than merely a productivity tool for sales - the more complete and timely your data, the more valuable the insights you can gain from it. Most important is the consolidation of finance, sales and employee activity data so that recruitment leaders can forecast accurately, recruit and onboard more effectively and maintain a high-performance culture. At cube19, we are automating the reporting process for recruitment firms of all sizes, delivering real-time insights to enable the whole business to work more efficiently.

How could automation impact your business?

As Bullhorn recently stated “One hour saved per day per recruiter/salesperson equals 260 hours per year, per employee! That’s a lot of hours saved and multiply that by 50 (recruiters/salespeople) and you’re looking at 13,000 hours saved per year!”. Not only does this reduce operational costs but it also frees up your consultants to have more meaningful and productive conversations with candidates, clients, and sales prospects.

As we begin to find the ‘new post-COVID-19 normal’, is automation part of your business strategy? Kyloe have a number of options open to you – from Herefish setup to completely custom automations, we can help.