To CRM or not to CRM, that is the question. In the interest of an honest and open relationship between us, we’re going to state straight away that we’re not trying to sell you a CRM. But we will help you know whether it’s time to invest.
By now you may have already set your own agency up. You should be pleased with yourself! Under recent circumstances, some might call you brave and some might call you crazy… but you’ve made the bold move and why not.
Whilst we know we have a best in class Recruitment CRM that improves our customers ‘productivity and efficiency and consultants love using, not every CRM provider is right for every business.
So here we will present two sides to the recruitment CRM debate, to help you decide whether your start-up is doing the right thing by making this investment now.
You don’t need a CRM if…
We told you we weren’t trying to sell you anything. We’ll start by presenting some case studies for when you shouldn’t consider a CRM:
Day One John
You’re sat at your brand new, remote-working HQ (the kitchen table) with a telephone in one hand and a LinkedIn recruiter license in the other. You’ve got a plan, but you haven’t actually started yet. First start by starting… win clients, talk to candidates and get things moving. You’ll eventually have to buy software as you grow, especially once the pandemic has ended and the industry recovers, but for now you can keep your costs low and see if the business is viable before you start throwing money at technology.
“Funnel”ly enough
You’ve made a start but you still haven’t quite got a sales funnel yet. Your focus should be on getting yourself out there to potential clients. While there aren’t trade-shows on at the moment, there are plenty of networking opportunities on LinkedIn and clients to speak to on your phone! Win some clients, then we’ll talk.
Remember, the barriers to entry in recruitment are low, and that includes starting a business – especially in light of the recent pandemic. Nearly 800 new recruitment businesses were registered with Companies House – all just in the month of March. A reassuring statistic for us all, but you may have some competition!
A CRM would hugely benefit your start-up if…
Your business is thriving and you’re bringing in revenue, profit, candidates, clients. It’s definitely time to think about the software, excel spreadsheets or Google docs you’re using and how it can work better for you. Here’s our case studies for when you would benefit:
Your consultants are burdened with manual admin
Your consultants are having to spend hours on end inputting manual fields of data to record information. You could save a whole load of time, labour and moans by setting your agency up with a recruitment database. Its designed to automate most of your tasks… meaning your consultants can spend more time making placements than inputting data.
You’ve got a nightmare role
We all have those roles that are a real pain to fill because of very specific skill sets and requirements, it’s just part of the job. However, a spreadsheet won’t help you here. Your recruitment software will. It can help you nurture candidates, move them through the pipeline and keep your candidate pools thriving so that you always have a suitable shortlist to fall back on.
You’ve lost an employee (and client)
One of your consultants has walked. They’re taking all their information and relationships with them, and you’re left with nothing but empty gaps in your candidate pool. A recruitment CRM would ensure you don’t lose your precious information, giving you peace of mind that no candidate, client or contact data is ever lost.
Your conversions are down
You’ve probably already got a website and online presence. If it’s used correctly and nurtured, it will send a steady amount of traffic to you. But what’s the point of getting the traffic if you can’t convert it into direct ROI. A recruitment CRM will help you convert your website viewers into leads and fees for your business.
Your clients are getting annoyed
Has information not been recorded correctly? Do your consultants know how many times a client has been contacted? Have they ever misplaced data, leading to wrong CVs being sent to a client? These are all things that happen too often in a recruitment business without logical, effective processes. These are all things that can be solved with a recruitment CRM, which can keep a seamless record of when your client has been contacted and exactly which candidates have been sent over. The last thing you want to do is damage relationships – your business’s reputation and livelihood could be at stake!
It’s your call
As we said, a recruitment CRM isn’t right for every business, and there’s no one-size fits all. You can’t just gather us software providers into a hat and pick one out at random. You need to make an informed choice, and make sure that if you do choose a recruitment CRM it’s for the right reasons for your business. We wish you all the best.
If you’re looking for more advice or helpful guides specifically designed for start-up recruitment agencies it’s worth you checking out our Start-up Recruitment Agency resource hub with plenty of top tips, practical guides and content as well as The Ultimate Recruitment Agency Start-up toolkit for you to download.
