Why some recruitment agencies fail – and others thrive

April 16th, 2015 | Industry News

We spend a lot of time designing software for recruitment agencies – and as a result, we know a lot about why some recruitment consultancies thrive and others barely make a living, or even fail, and that’s why we design our software to ensure that we’re contributing to the success of our clients.

Multi-tasking

Recruitment is a challenging industry and the demand to multi-task is one of the most complex challenges of all. Moving from candidate to candidate, handling phone calls and social media, getting out on the road to understand what your clients want, billing, checking contracts, searching resumes, managing payroll … when you write it down, it’s pretty daunting! Software should make this kind of challenge easy, by being available on the move, on mobiles and online, so that your consultants can find the right balance between candidates and clients, billing and interviewing, responding and initiating. We’re proud to say we’ve got a handle on multitasking that rival recruitment agency software systems can’t begin to match.

Candidate handling

Whilst dealing with clients often gets priority (and we’re coming to that) candidate experience is vital to success in the recruitment industry. In a hirer’s market, the best candidates can easily pick and choose what agencies to work with, and they always choose the ones that treat them well and provide good opportunities. That means your recruitment agency software has to offer CV parsing that’s second to none, because sending candidates for interviews where they don’t match the job spec is a sure-fire way to lose their loyalty. It also means keeping in touch with them regularly, so they know they are important to you – a social media component to your recruiting software is vital for this. At Recruit So Simple we build all our software with engagement at the heart, not off to the side, so nothing could be simpler than connecting with your candidates where they are most likely to be found – on social media.

Candidate ownership

Whilst candidate handling is pretty touchy-feely, let’s be honest about the cold hard facts of the recruitment industry. There is only so much candidate talent to go around – and every agency is competing to get the talent to the client. An effective Applicant Tracking System and a state of the art Customer Relationship Management function will combine to ensure that you can prove when you sent a CV to a client and when you contacted a candidate to tell them about a vacancy – it means the results of your hard work don’t end up in the pockets of some opportunistic agency that’s poached into your territory. We know it’s the agencies that stay on top of their ATS and CRM that get the fees … and we make it easy for them to be the winners.

Client handling

Nobody ever doubts that clients are the life blood of a recruitment consultancy. Every recruitment agency needs clients that come back over and over again. What makes them do that? They need to have a superb client experience – the best candidates for each position, presented as comprehensively as possible, in a timely fashion, and with simple billing is just the beginning. Beyond that, managing the client relationship is crucial to success, and staying in touch and monitoring social media are also essential. Keeping in touch with clients using an inbuilt calendar means you can offer them the support they need before they even think they need it – so that you’re not the agency of choice, but the agency that does the choosing.