The relationship between recruitment firms, their clients, and the candidates they place is changing. Remote working is on the rise, which has led to many companies embracing a digital-only hiring process – and even considering candidates in other cities or countries, for full-time remote positions. Although the deployment of a successful vaccine is on the horizon, it seems unlikely that the current model of work and pandemic recruitment will go away entirely, if at all.
In this new normal, it has become more challenging for recruiters to form and maintain personal connections that are essential to their business. But there is an opportunity within this change. The switch to digital-first recruiting allows firms to leverage data to more effectively engage clients and candidates. Firms can tap into richer digital insights, leveraging this information throughout the recruitment process to intelligently automate marketing, engagement and support efforts.
If they are to thrive in this new model of recruitment, firms must manage the careful balance between data-driven insight and meaningful interaction. They must focus their efforts on shifting to a single, data-driven view of their clients and candidates - empowering stronger relationships long term. The firms that can combine the benefits of both, will stay relevant to their clients and remain effective when placing candidates, ensuring their competitive advantage for years to come.
Moving away from the ‘black-book’ mentality
Data is essential for recruitment firms. But not all data is created equal. Data that is confined within closed-off systems and hampered by a traditionalist ‘black book’ mentality can hold companies back from fulfilling the full range of client and candidate needs. Without shared information and understanding of both, there is a limit to how effectively the firm can build effective long-term relationships and ensure the success of engagement efforts. To succeed, recruitment firms must discourage the hoarding of data and prioritise the documentation and sharing of insights, so the firm as a whole can offer a more in-depth, personalised service to their clients.
Building lifelong client and candidate relationships
Recruitment firms have historically operated on a vacancy-by-vacancy basis, trying to find the right candidate for the current position. This mindset needs to change. Recruiters must move towards the ‘clients for life’ model, building meaningful relationships that allow a recruiter to support their clients and candidates long term. But how does that look in practice?
This ‘clients-for-life’ model harnesses the power of data and automation to enable recruiters to build stronger, lifelong relationships with their clients and candidates. Digital automation tools make it possible for recruiters to maintain relationships with clients and candidates over the medium to long term with minimal effort – regular check-ins and post-placement support contact can be automated and populated with earlier insights. Recruiters are no longer placing a candidate once and then never seeing them again. Instead, they can easily monitor progress, check-in with client and candidate, and maintain an ongoing relationship, even when the candidate has moved on.
For the candidates, this model creates a lifelong relationship with recruiters – giving them the support and engagement of a recruiter throughout their career. The recruiter can easily maintain contact with the candidate and identify possible future opportunities for them in the long term. For the clients, they have the reassurance that the recruiter is invested in their placement’s success – demonstrated by the regular follow-ups and check-ins.
Salesforce: helping recruitment firms balance people and data
If recruitment firms wish to continue building strong client and candidate relationships in the new normal, they must take advantage of the data they have access to. Capturing high-quality data across recruitment firms and democratising its use will enable firms to build and maintain strong external relationships during the pandemic and beyond. Data enables the insights learned about a client or candidate to serve the company long-term and allows recruiters to easily maintain post-placement support and ongoing engagement.
Salesforce provides the connected, 360-degree recruitment platform that helps firms leverage data to build stronger relationships. It gives recruiters with one central, unified source of insight on clients and candidates, underpinned by intelligent automation tools that simplify every aspect of the recruitment process, from marketing, business development and acquisition, through to sales, service delivery and post-placement support.
Learn more about how Salesforce is helping recruiters use data to build lifelong relationships with candidates and clients in our industry guide.
