4 Things to Help Recruiters Bill More Sales During and After Covid

Blog Content

Recruitment Leaders, before Covid, was your tech delivering profit? Or, did you have the feeling that you were over investing in tech? Did you suffer:

Too much data, not enough information?
Too many applicants, not enough candidates?
Too many jobs, not enough placements?
Too many systems, not enough process?

I recently spoke at Rec2020 and the topic was: Recruitment Technology – The Future and Making it Work for You – and the take away was:

you need to seriously accelerate effective tech adoption in your business – now is the time!

But with the current climate, frustrations, and "new normal" changing every day, how do you do this? We answered these four questions...

1. Recruitment Tech! All The Gear, No Idea?

Perhaps, due to:

Massively distracting market conditions
Staff returning from furlough, and possible not firing on all cylinders (fair enough!)
Recruiters drowning in candidates applying for jobs that they can’t do
RecTec supplier invoices needing paying

…you now feel that you were “over investing” in recruitment tech. What did it actually do to help you through this period, and what will it do in the coming months?

For example, my team reviewed a 25-person recruitment business with a tech stack costing £200k+. (This excluded their Bullhorn CRM, which ironically, they were not using effectively.) The business wanted to be more effective at attracting, sourcing, engaging, converting, retaining. But they had great tech, data, and passionate recruiters…

2. The Problem Between the Chair and the Keyboard? (Recruiters?)

Did you have PIBKAC before Covid, and do you want it now and in the future?

Ask yourself:

How was your business performing before Covid?

Did you:

Have a team of highly trained, super-engaged recruiters, delivering super-happy candidates to clients who couldn’t cope without you?
Have a fully monetised set of systems, data, and processes
And a marketing department generating awesome leads that your sales team could convert?

Or were your 3Cs (candidates, clients, colleagues) not being as effective as you’d like, and you seemed to be buying more and more tech just to stay the same?

Perhaps you also suffered from a high attrition rate (average before Covid = 43%). Note that 2/3 of people who quit their jobs in 2019 stated “lack of training” as their reason for leaving.

Perhaps you’d used up your business growth budget on salaries (who) and tech (what) and neglected the training (how)? Perhaps you thought "automation" would fix everything?

3. Is Recruitment Automation the Goal?

Recruitment automation has become a real turn on for some in the industry (including myself!) Systems like Herefish are really kicking butt and doing things to the recruitment process that fixes a lot of the issues outlined above. It’s a great time saver and processes speeder-upper!

But - in our march to “automate” we’ve forgotten a step...

Systems can only automate processes, if the processes (or at least the sentiment) exist.

Humans are still pretty viable (understatement) in the recruitment agency world. The key is to understand where and how they deliver their marketing, sales and recruitment, so you can delegate some of it to a system, then leave the recruiter to do the bit only they can do.

But in an industry that is drowning in data and systems, it suffers a lack of process. And there is a distinct lack of systems and process training for recruiters which compounds the problem.

Look at your processes:

Can they be automated? What’s possible (and plausible)?
What isn't being done consistently, forgotten, or what would you like to do that will improve candidate/client experience and free up consultant time for more valuable activities?
What needs automating so that your staff can work from home, and you can lead / manage them more effectively?
How can you create time for recruiters to develop stronger relationships with clients and candidates (hence stronger pipelines)?

4. How Do You Generate the Buy-In for Using Recruitment Technology Effectively?

You need buy-in for this for effective rectec adoption. So, gain an understanding of two things (thanks Andy):

How will recruitment tech drive an increase in performance
How will it solve a business-critical issue (eg. Covid) which will enable point 1

Often recruiters need more time to manage the sales process. (They likely have enough data and systems). Ask yourself:

If I could save each of my recruiters 1 hour a day (hence 30 days a year) how much more could they bill?

What could they do with that hour?

Through the Bullhorn, Adapt, and other recruitment training my team delivers, we aim to give recruiters back 1 hour a day.

Case study:

A recruiter who has a £100,000k target.
They’re full time and take 20 days hols a year.
My team trains them to use their tech more effectively and saves them 1 hour a day.
This generates 30 days extra time per year.
This equates to a potential pipeline of an extra £12,500

You have 10 staff? This means £125,000. What’s the commission for you and your team on that figure?

And how much does it cost to train recruiters to generate that level of fee? (not as much!)

That’s a simple way of measuring performance improvements and generating buy-in from all levels of the business.

Recruitment Leaders, You Need… 1, 2, 3

You need to seriously accelerate effective tech adoption in your business – now is the time!

Look at your tech stack– is it delivering value to you, or just the people you bought it from?
Look at your processes - are they clear enough for remote workers to adopt, managers to manage, and where possible, to automate?
Admit that your staff are extremely unlikely to ask for help in the current market. It is too risky to admit a lack of skill? Be the leader and get them trained.

If the rest of 2020 is about linking your systems, data, processes and people, imagine what 2021 could be like!

Watch the Rec2020 Webinar Here

HIIT Us, Recruiters!

Could you save an hour a day, and make an extra £18,750 a year (or £187,500 if there are 10 of you?)

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 leads, and colleagues (3Cs).