In an ideal world, all recruitment agencies want to attract clients to themselves and increase clients coming to them with their recruitment requirements. However, with 20,000+ recruitment agencies available, only in the U.S, operating 39000+ offices. It’s safe to say the space is crowded.
Needless to say, this creates a need for agencies to strategize their approach plan, improve outreach and streamline the process.
Read on for tips on how recruitment agencies can find clients, to keep the business running.
1. Use Job Portals To Know Who Is Hiring
All companies, irrespective of the industry, use job boards for the job posting. Usually, companies find job portals very effective to recruit, however, this may not work out best if it’s a time-critical position.
This is where recruitment agencies can step in, and get in touch with these companies to discuss how recruitment agencies’ hiring services can help them fill positions with qualified candidates.
Proactively crawling job portals help assess prospective clients and their recruitment needs.
Use recruitment CRM to manage leads for staffing companies and future relationships that you would build with clients.
Using job boards could be the easiest way for recruitment agencies to prospect for new clients.
2. Connect On Social Media
Social Media has created a virtual world of communication for all spheres, hence, it’s no surprise that it has also made inroads for recruitment-related activities. Almost every potential client and applicant can be found on social media.
Did you know nearly 49% of professionals follow companies to stay aware of their jobs?
In fact, networks like LinkedIn, Quora, and Facebook are used extensively for running employee branding campaigns. Similarly, these platforms can be used for putting the word out there for your recruitment agency.
Another good way to leverage this would be to join professional communities such as pages and groups to network with potential clients.
3. Ask For Referrals To Existing Clients
Like any other business-to-business company, recruitment agencies have to spend time cultivating connections and maintaining professional relationships.
Here, identifying decision-makers and end beneficiaries helps understand how much effort to put in with each stakeholder. For instance, hiring managers will revert back to the agencies which helped them during the time of recruitment. Later, you can seek a referral with this manager and look for some new leads. Or even ask this connection for prospecting if anyone in his or her network is looking for recruitment services.
While some clients are proactive in spreading the word about your staffing company, some may require a nudge. Don’t hesitate to reach out and ask for referrals either through regular communications or emails.
4. Many Recruitment Agencies Find Clients Through Cold Calling
Cold calling is the oldest trick in the book, for prospecting clients in both B2B and B2C settings. However, it can prove to be expensive with little returns if not done correctly.
In recruitment, cold calling has proved to be very successful. A Twitter survey suggests, 50% of the agencies rely on cold calling for prospecting clients.
It is important, however, to put in some work before adopting this method.
First and foremost, identify the persona of your potential customer. Then create the target groups, and map their needs with the services you are offering.
Secondly, book the right time slots and places for conducting the discussion.
Thirdly, instead of making a generic pitch, make it specific by pitching for current open positions. This shows you mean business and a positive response is more likely.
5. Run Email Campaigns And Track Them
This is a tried and tested method, and its effectiveness is also questioned time and again. Despite the debates, email campaigns actually produce results to compete with social media.
Auto forwarding a single email to all clients will surely result in failure. Thus, to make this method a success is to ensure the content shared is relevant, personalized, and of use for the potential customers. In addition, keep an eye on your DMARC reports when it comes to emails to avoid any security-related issues or concerns.
Another useful tip is to use analytics from recruiting CRM to plan and monitor email marketing. This will help you target your efforts better, and reap the results. Using technology for your efforts certainly brings great results, faster!
6. Participate In Networking Events
Networking is the most overused word in the world of marketing, sales, and career.
Everyone can gain from networking.
The most common way to network is to participate in corporate or local networking events. However, many times, we miss tapping into our organic networks of college friends, college alumni, former colleagues, bosses, and fellow contacts. They may know people or local businesses who may benefit from your service. Hence, maintaining a strong network is vital to cast the net wide.
7. Be Found Using Content Marketing
Everyone does their research before they make any decision. And they use Google search as their primary tool to do that.
Be it buying a new television set or making a business decision, everyone does Google search.
What do you think companies seeking recruitment agencies would do? They would mostly Google for the best recruitment agencies. And you want to be on that search result. Don’t you?
The only way you can be on a Google search list is by writing relevant content. Creating quality content and producing it regularly is no easy task, but with the search engines adding to the promotions it’s a tool for the future.
Content marketing is a passive method that aims at creating trails and bringing in visitors. When content marketing starts working for you, it could bring exponential growth to your business.
Investing in creating an authoritative and knowledgeable web presence will increase the chances of clients approaching you for solutions.
8. Upgrading And Staying Up To Date
All companies and individuals are painstakingly aware of the dynamic shift technology has brought to the world, and the capability of technology to re-shape the future. As a result, each one of them wants to be future-ready and drive adoption. Thus, optimizing your process and keeping track of the latest practices will help you improve success rates.
Recruitment technology is no different. It is advancing every day.
For example, investing in ATS and CRM makes the recruitment cycle easy to track. According to Recruiting Software Impact report by Capterra, 75% of recruiters use some form of ATS, out of which 94% it has helped improve the hiring process.
From social media enrichment to automated data extraction and job portal integrations, there are a plethora of innovative tools being deployed to expedite the hiring process.
Many recruitment agencies use either ATS or CRM to streamline recruitment activities. However, an ATS which offers well-rounded CRM functionalities can be the differentiator between acquiring a client and losing the deal. And since this software allows you to track, manage, communicate and follow up with prospects over time you can be assured of doing justice to a lead.
In summary, adding layers of efficiencies, deploying the latest tools, and finding a smarter way to connect with prospective clients will make all the difference. Be it a customized newsletter for each industry or adding a personal touch in cold calling, these small changes will make you and your firm stand out and win.
