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Recruitment CRM should be the FIRST system used to drive sales, source candidates, convert leads... but often, it's a dumb system, a data dump, "just another bit of recruitment kit" preventing phone and face time. Our clients agree with our mantra "CRMFirst" and want to ensure that their recruitment software is implemented to deliver the 4Cs - candidates, client, colleagues, and cash.
Recruitment CRM - AKA the Sales-Prevention Software
Maybe you’ve had your Recruitment CRM for longer than you’ve had most of your employees and you’re hearing lots of the same moans and groans:
it’s not working
it’s always crashing
I can’t find any candidates in it
my 1980’s Atari felt more up to date
there is no management info because no one’s using it!
The decision has been made to replace your recruitment CRM. You’ve spent 6 months sourcing a new one, another 6 months implementing it and would you believe it, 6 months later and you’re still hearing the same old moans and groans.
How can you give BAU (business as usual) the best chance of success?
Business as Usual Starts Before BAU
It may sound obvious, but many Recruitment CRM projects struggle at the embedding phase due to inadequate post go live planning. It’s not surprising. There is a HUGE amount to do during implementation and the project team are normally spread thin focusing on getting the new system in a fit state for go live.
There are many strategies to planning and managing BAU (business as usual). My favourite is having a BAU project team involved mid-way through implementation. Their responsibility is to plan, support and manage the embedding of the CRM into business over the next 12 months. Their job is to make sure that your investment returns! (ROI)
“That’s a big investment“, I hear you say. However, what is the cost of a disgruntled workforce being negative or the disruption of losing many people or the lost opportunities of your current and future clients? And with 2/3 of job leavers quitting due to lack of training, and the average 10 person recruiters wasting £100,000 per year on replacing leavers, something has to change.
Investing in the BAU is almost more important that the implementation process itself; underestimate the BAU support requirements at your peril.
Management are THE Key to Success CRM Change
Management don’t need to know how to use the CRM, right? WRONG!
Management / Directors / Team Leaders all need to know exactly how everyone should be using the system so they can support and train their teams at go live and beyond.
All too often, “Super Users” are trained to deliver this message but they tend to be sales administrators, busy consultants or new recruits. They don’t have the status within the business to try to invoke change or persuade the biggest billers why they should change their habits and behaviours!
The adage of “Coming from the Top” really is true when you’re managing CRM Implementation Projects. These are not technology projects, they are Change Management Projects and the only people who can change the business are the leaders and managers of that business.
It’s All About Communicating Expectations
When a recruiter hears the following “We are going to change the CRM”, what they really hear is “Yippee, a new CRM. It’s just like upgrading my car; it will be shiny and faster and way better than what I had, oh and I know how to drive so it will be easy to adapt!”
This can lead to my personal favourite user statement “The previous system was so much better/easier!”. No, the previous system which was built on highly suspect 1980’s technology that continuously failed and you always complained about, was more FAMILIAR. As a project team, you have to prepare users for change and this starts not at Go Live, but much earlier during the implementation phase.
Key Rules when Implementing a New Recruitment CRM
Ensure you tell everyone that CHANGE is coming and everyone needs to get on-board!
The system will not be perfect from day 1, everyone needs to prepare to communicate issues and be ready for CHANGE!
There will be BUGS (potentially a lot and for a lot longer that you’d like!) Live with them whilst the project team sorts them out!
Get SLAs (service level agreements) in place – ensure you respond to EVERY issue and communicate an update or fix to the business (if it warrants it) or the individual on a pre-agreed timeframe.
We work with Recruitment and IT leaders to deliver an ROI and sales-led recruitment technology strategy. Our mantra is “CRMFirst”!
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Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate clients, and colleagues (3Cs).
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Lisa Jones
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How to Make Your Recruiter the Coolest Tool
Recruitment leaders want a sustainable recruitment business: high-performing trained recruiters, delivering profitable and speedy placements.Recruiters need more time to bill, cleaner data, and engaged clients and candidates.Recruitment leaders often ask me:What are the coolest tools in recruitment?My answer?The coolest recruitment tool is the one that makes the placement - the recruiter.The issue we have is that as an industry we seem to love investing in perceived cool tools - recruitment tech - but poor adoption means the tech fails to deliver. Not cool!Your Recruiters Are Your Coolest ToolAs trainers in the recruitment sector, our experience gives us an invaluable view of the industry with its issues, goals, and ideal strategies. We offer recruiter training and tactics to help improve recruiter performance and recruitment tech ROI.The one thing my clients have in common is they want to do more with less.Less cost, more profit.Less data, more placements.Less systems, more process.The stats below tell a powerful story about the need for your recruiters to be smart (and cool)!How Can You Make Your Recruiters Your Coolest Tool?As a recruitment leader, you want to place the candidates you already have. You want to reduce reliance on external systems, as well as reduce costs. You want your recruiters to be more productive. You want to scale your recruitment business without necessarily hiring more recruiters.How?Make it ok to be cool. Make it an accountability and / or a value to work smart and be "less is more"! You could even aim for a 1% improvement...Don't buy recruitment tech and "hope". Hope is a strategy that rarely works. Only continuous training drives continuous improvement.Continuous training needs to be quick (minutes not hours), accessible, and cost-effective. Not lengthy, difficult to access, difficult to track ROI.Our Recruitment Training Playbook is Cool!Your recruiters need to be super effective and not just crazy busy. You need to lead them to be cool tools!Try our tips in our recruitment training playbook and make your recruiters cool! The playbook is packed full of ideas that we use in our recruitment training, our Bullhorn training, and our automation training. And keep an eye out for the 2nd coolest tool - Recruitment HIIT. Speedy 10min turbo-charged training to help with recruitment best practice, Bullhorn training, Adapt Training, and more.DOWNLOAD YOUR RECRUITMENT TRAINING PLAYBOOKSpeaking of Recruitment Training...Recruitment HIIT trains recruiters and resourcers so you can speedily onboard new starters, and improve performance of experienced recruiters.Job qualification, screening, sourcing, job advertising, and counteroffer immunity, are just some of the 10-minute topics our clients love.We’d love you to try Recruitment HIIT free.TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FREE
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Lisa Jones
Blog
How to Use Recruitment Awards to Drive Your Sales Pipeline
We’re passionate about recruitment awards! Whether you’re entering, winning, attending or spying, there’s ROI to be had for recruiters, beyond simply having a recruitment award trophy.There are 3 things I want to talk about today:A top sales tip on how to run your recruitment sales strategy with awards, without even submitting an awards entry!Industry Awards you can use within your niche sector to increase your pipeline.2023 Recruitment Awards you may want to focus on to improve your recruitment business.We are proud to be triple award winners, including the APSCo award for Affiliate Member of the Year, so know how awards can help you improve your sales pipeline and grow.1. Sales Tip - Use Recruitment Awards for BD and Account ManagementLet's face it, now more than ever, your sales strategies(business development and account management) are absolutely crucial in a post-pandemic world where the war for talent is raging, counter offers are rife, and clients need recruiters that they can trust, who understand their niche.By definition clients that are entering awards tend to be high growth, ambitious, and likely have money and time to spend on recruitment too! Surely?My top tips to add turbo to your business development and account management: 1. Speedily research which awards are prevalent in your niche sectors.2. Plot the dates into your diaries (the submission dates, shortlist dates, date of the event, day after the event).3. Make a noise, connect with the VIPs, shout out about these events - they are important to your niche sectors.4. Use this data by at least sending LinkedIn messages to the VIPs of these businesses when they are shortlisted, and then begin networking using your CRM and automation.5. Have targets and goals to convert these high-growth businesses into retained clients.Clients entering awards are "sure things" - be sure to have them in your BD and account management pipeline.We have plenty of other sales tips, as well as sourcing tips, candidate management, job qualification tips in Recruitment HIIT, too.TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FOR FREE2. Recruitment Industry AwardsYou can utilise the upcoming awards within your niche sector to ensure you find, engage, nurture, and retain your clients. That's right, you can use the awards within your industry to generate sales without even submitting an awards entry. Your ideal clients are likely to enter awards within their sector to drive growth. Use the UK Industry awards list to spot potential clients you can engage with to improve your BD, account management tactics, and your pipeline.This is a great opportunity for you to show you understand your target client's niche. The UK Industry awards list alongside our sales tips in step 1 is a surefire way to improve your awards sales strategy. 3. 2023 Recruitment AwardsIf you want to use Recruitment Awards to attract attention and drive sales, you can of course enter some awards.Check out our 2023 list recruitment awards list below! (Have we missed any recruitment awards for the remainder of 2023? Contact Usto get them added.)This year recruiters need to do more with less. The goal could be to win an award, but it's actually more likely to be bigger than winning. The goal is to generate more speed and pipeline (whether you enter, win, or simply attend!).Investing in Talent AwardsJanuary 2023 - The annual Investing in Talent Awards asks: Do your recruiters love working in your business? Is your company the consultancy of choice for contractors and temporary workers? If so, it’s time that your business receives well-deserved recognition for Investing in Talent. Onrec AwardsMarch 2023 - The prestigious Onrec AwardsCeremony has cemented itself in the calendar as a must-attend event. Not only is it an opportunity to celebrate the very best in Online Recruitment but it is also a chance to network with the very best suppliers in recruitment.Recruiter AwardsSeptember 2023 - The iconic Recruiter Awardsis the UK’s largest event for the entire recruitment community, recognising outstanding achievements by agencies and in-house recruiters. Achievements in recruitment marketing and technology also are spotlighted.APSCo AwardsSeptember 2023 - The APSCo Awards for Excellenceare a prestigious accolade in professional recruitment. The awards celebrate outstanding achievements in the professional recruitment sector and are a unique indicator of professional standards. They are widely recognised by clients as well as the recruitment sector. The awards are free to enter and open to all APSCo members.TIARAOctober 2023 - The TIARA Recruitment Awards recognises excellence in the UK’s best-performing recruitment companies with revenues above £5m.The Global Recruiter AwardsNovember 2023 - The Global Recruiter Industry Awardscelebrates the best of the best in recruitment. The Awards are totally free to enter, which means that the smallest and newest players in the industry have the chance to be recognised alongside established organisations.NORAsNovember 2023 - Established in 2001, the National Online Recruitment Awardsacknowledge and reward excellence in online recruitment practice. They are dedicated to the continual improvement and evolution of the candidate experience. ... and for Other Sales Tips for Recruiters...Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters and resourcers source, convert quicker and develop healthy pipelines. We aim to save every recruiter and resourcer at least 1 hour per day (6 working weeks a year). Hence, more billing time and more fees!We’d love you to try Recruitment HIIT for free. Or book a call to discuss your recruitment training.TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FOR FREE
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