Blog · Barclay Jones

Protect Your Pipeline with this Antidote to Backdoor Placements

Backdoor placements are often an "invisible" pipeline killer. Yet they are also a great opportunity to recover lost revenue. Silver linings! Are you missing out on smashing target by not actively managing backdoor placements? 20 Years Ago, in a Land Far Away...In Lisa and my younger days (20 years ago), we created a report to track theoretical backdoors, and had a team calling candidates at the employer they'd recently had an interview with. If they answered, they were put through to the recruiter to begin recouping the lost fee.Surely time has moved on and there are more effective and tech-driven ways of doing this? Plus, surely recruiters are better at sales admin and relationship management now, so back doors are less common? I'm not so sure... If anything more data and tech has actually created a less robust process in many firms.Let’s explore why tracking backdoor placements is critical and how to implement best practices and technology for spotting and reducing them.The Financial Impact of Backdoor PlacementsWhen a candidate you’ve introduced to a client is hired without your knowledge or agreement on fees, you lose the fee. This often happens when terms of business aren’t adhered to, or when a client chooses to go behind your back. Consider this: one recruiter we’ve worked with reported uncovering at least one lost fee per consultant annually. For a team of 30 recruiters, that’s a staggering £150,000 in potential net revenue. In one instance, a single backdoor placement resulted in a recovered fee of £32,000. These numbers are too significant to ignore.Additionally, recruiters often spend resources sourcing candidates from external platforms instead of leveraging their databases. Tracking and addressing backdoor placements encourages better use of internal resources while ensuring you recapture fees rightfully owed to your business.Building Trust and Strengthening Your Recruitment ProcessClients: Actively managing backdoor placements helps you optimise your client relationships. Clients who circumvent your terms of business do not value your partnership. Using Bullhorn to flag these incidents creates transparency and helps you spend time on clients who value you.Candidates: Additionally, having a proactive backdoor placement management process complements your silver medalist strategy. Silver medalists are candidates who reached advanced stages of the recruitment process but were not placed. By regularly engaging these high-potential candidates through your tracking systems, you keep them warm for future opportunities while minimising your reliance on external sourcing.Best Practices for Managing Backdoor PlacementsTrack Every Interaction: Ensure your CRM system captures interview stages and outcomes, even for candidates rejected at early stages. Use detailed note types like “Rejected at Interview” or “Rejected at CV Send” to maintain a clear record.Standardise Your Terms: Attach your terms and conditions to every client communication. This ensures clients can’t dispute fees later and provides you with a reliable audit trail.Monitor Data Ownership: Many lost placements are tied to inactive users or former consultants. Assign ownership of these candidates to managers to maintain visibility and accountability.Automate to Remove Human Error: Implement automation to consistently track candidate progress and flag potential backdoor placements. This minimises manual errors and improves data integrity.Automation - The Antidote to Backdoor PlacementsDuring a recent Bullhorn Automation User Group, I was asked about my top 3 ways to use automation. Backdoor placement management is one of those 3 ways. These 2 automations are a must of you are set on prevention and pipeline maximisation:Interview Confirmation automation: If you already use these automations, add a notification step, x months after the interview date. Choose a timeframe which suits your sector the best.Check Past Interviews (Backdoor): If you don't use Interview Confirmation automation, create a stand alone automation that tracks the interview date and does not have placement. Add a wait step x months later to send a notification to your recruiter to check-in with the candidate and check they don't have a new job. You could even do what Lisa and I set up in a previous life and call the employer and ask to speak to the candidate. If they answer... bingo!Process and Tech Is KeyUse tech to prevent them.Use tech to spot them.The bottom line is that backdoor placements aren’t just about recovering lost revenue; they’re an opportunity to refine your recruitment strategy, strengthen client and candidate relationships, and ensure your systems are robust enough to thrive in a competitive market. Take control, and turn these challenges into wins for your recruitment / staffing agency.And if you need help on your processes, your data, and your Bullhorn adoption / ROI - call us - we can help.Automation and Bullhorn1stWe are Automation Buddies and Bullhorn Experts set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses who want to increase speed and sales.Automation: We coach to inspire, and build your automations so you can recruit and sell!Bullhorn: We optimise, train, and improve RoI from your key recruitment system.READ ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION BUDDY SERVICERead about our Bullhorn 1st Service

6 Reasons Why Online Recruitment Training is a MUST

Recruitment leaders wanting to improve the performance of their recruiters has never been a more valid goal.Perhaps you’re looking to scale your recruitment business this year?Or stay the same size, but do more with what you already have (people, data, systems)?Don’t mess up the chance to improve recruiter performance by ignoring what’s “between the chair and the keyboard”. You need an agile, cost-effective, inclusive recruitment training solution, to improve / scale / protect your recruitment business.(If you have an online recruitment training platform already, try our online learning engagement tips to ensure you generate ROI! And read below for a pep talk on how you can get buy-in for your recruitment LMS.)Improving Recruiter Performance Has Never Been EasierI’ve written about Kaizen, 1% marginal gains, and improving recruiter performance. I've presented at the Recruitment Agency Expo about improving recruiter performance with automation. Kaizen is about standards, reduced waste, high-performance - which is a passion for my clients.Now is the perfect opportunity for recruitment leaders to "Kaizen".Scale at Speed – Improve PerformanceBefore the pandemic, 70% of recruiters admitted that they didn’t have enough training. Even if that's not true of your recruitment business, it’s likely since 2020 you’ve been “a little” distracted to focus on totally fixing recruiter performance.Recruitment training is obviously key…But your goals for training are often not achieved by traditional training and recruitment coaching. (And often the only people who get full ROI from training are those who deliver it and charge you for it.)Now with systems evolution, data volumes, and hybrid working, a new approach is needed.… This is where online training steals the march.6 Reasons Why Online Recruitment Training is a Must1. It's Cheaper and Agile🤑You can either spend £€$1,000s getting recruiters in the same place at the same time, turn off the phones, worry about missed opportunities, and run a “let’s hope this works” recruitment training session.OrYou can give your recruiters access to an online recruiter training platform (LMS) where they can learn and relearn when they want, where they want, stress-free. Online training platforms can be accessed throughout the year, 24/7, and they are normally cheaper than other training/trainers. You're likely looking for stronger screening and job qualification, improving CRM adoption, and reduced reliance on job boards. Use cost-effective online learning to create best-practice agility.2. Less Reliance on You – Less Stress😱This is definitely a year to be working on your business, so the time-consuming task of you and your managers training new starters needs a rethink. I spoke with a recruitment manager recently who admitted 2 things:She didn’t know Bullhorn well enough to train her new starter (a common case study).When she hired a new recruiter, her fees dropped significantly for 3 months.Online recruitment training helped her rapidly re-skill, and took away the pressure of onboarding new recruiters. Online learning provided the training for her rookies, and she did the coaching and bingo! The rookies started billing quicker too!It's gold dust for me when I get a new starter. I save huge amounts of time when onboarding them. I can still run my desk. (And, Recruitment HIIT has opened my eyes to how I can use Bullhorn, too.)3. More Effective💪Online learning boasts retention rates at a massive 60% (compared to 10% traditional training) and you learn 5 x more with online learning.Plus, learning at your desk – in the environment where you are delivering your job – is more effective.Online learning is often minutes not hours. I know in recruitment speed is just as important as pipeline.Yes, we’ve all had horrific, disengaging, online learning experiences. Don’t let past experiences prevent future gains. Plus new recruiters prefer online.Whether it’s increased sourcing speed, or improving CV to Interview ratios, you need quick, self-serve effective recruitment training. You can’t afford to not improve.I am building trust quickly and becoming more efficient. HIIT has created flexibility for me to train myself at my desk whilst I am doing my job. And I can quickly re-fresh the training whenever I want.4. It’s “Just in Time” and Easier⌚Freeing up a team of busy recruiters, and getting them all synchronised and focussed is a tough gig.Why disrupt your recruiters when they can log on for 5 minutes, learn a new recruiting hack, log off, and get back on the phone and practice what they’ve learned?“Always on”, continuous learning for recruiters is key to creating accountability and a sense of recruiters feeling in control of their careers.Got a counteroffer? Login and complete a 5-minute workout to tackle it head-on. A recruiter told me:I got a counteroffer. I went back to the online training I'd already completed. I took notes which helped me get back on the phone and ensure that the candidate was attracted by the role, not the money.5. It’s Inclusive, Hybrid and Remote Friendly🟰I get that managing a remote/hybrid recruitment team is challenging.Maintaining standards, keeping everyone engaged, and delivering “your way” was tough enough pre-pandemic.Now, with online learning tools, you have a chance to attract, engage, and nurture your recruiters. (Neat tip: with online training, you can give your recruiters access to their online training platform before they even start to ensure that they stay engaged and don’t drop out.) Plus, if your training platform is gamified, your recruiters will see each other online and feel more connected. You’re creating a community for your potentially disconnected recruiters. 6. Prevents Churn 💩Glib quotes around not training recruiters and having them stay are not needed here.Acknowledge that recruiters crave training and will leave without it. In fact, a whopping 2/3 of people leave due to lack of training. The last thing any recruitment leader needs right now is to lose valuable recruiters, or indeed take too long to train new starters. I left my previous recruitment job as I didn’t have enough training. HIIT is priceless. It gives me that edge over other recruiters.More Reasons Online Recruitment Training WorksOther viable reasons why online training is crucial in recruitment. Recruitment training:Gives recruiters control – accountability. Better for the environment.Gamification drives engagement and performance.Flexible and mobile – where you want, when you want.Self-paced – different people learn at different speeds hence you need to allow for that.Improves the ROI from your internal training. Trainers can focus more on coaching performance rather than repeatedly training new recruits - blended learning works.Final Word on Recruitment TrainingWhether you’re looking to improve your recruiter performance, generate ROI from your people, data, systems, or just create a better experience for your candidates and clients, training is crucial. Just be sure that the recruiter training you buy is engaging, easy, self-serve, relieves stress and pressure on you and your team, and is cost-effective. And if you have an online platform already, try our online learning engagement tips to ensure you generate ROI from that!...Talking of Online Recruitment Training...Recruitment HIIT trains recruiters and resourcers so you can speedily onboard new starters, and improve the performance of experienced recruiters.Bullhorn hacks, job qualification, screening, sourcing, job advertising, and counteroffer immunity, are just some of the 5-minute topics recruiters love.TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FREEDOWNLOAD YOUR RECRUITMENT TRAINING PLAYBOOK