It’s the New Year, and one of the best times to reflect on what you’ve accomplished, what you can do better, and re-set your focus for the year ahead. So whether it’s driving more revenue, or finding quality candidates – it’s made up of the sum of all parts.
Block out a day, sit down with your team and map out a strategy that will help you reach your goals in 2020. Here is our list of 7 resolutions to consider:
1. Perfect your candidate experience
A great candidate experience can be the ideal competitive advantage for your recruitment business. Not only will satisfied candidates return for your services, but they will tell their colleagues about your business - an easy talent pipeline for you to fill upcoming roles easily. Ensure the experience on website is a pleasant one, especially when applying for jobs or onboarding through your candidate portal.
TIP: Respond to all candidates. Get back to them even if it’s sending that dreadful rejection notice. Always keep them in the loop and in the know on what to expect for each step of the recruitment process.
2. Automate your workflows
If your business processes are predominantly manual, it’s time to start automating these. Write down all the manual tasks your team does, then rank them by approximate hours spent per week. This will give you a clear indication of where you should automate to save time.
There are many tools available on the market today, but it’s important that the tools you use are already integrated, so you don’t have to spend time and money connecting your tech stack together.
Choose wisely because selecting the wrong system could set your team back by a couple of months (or more) if you decide to switch, not to mention the pain and hassle that comes with data migration.
TIP: Make a list of the tasks you want to automate and prioritize them. Use it as a checklist when selecting your new Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Ensure that your new platform ticks all the boxes - or if not, can it easily integrate with other tools you love with minimal set up required, and is there a 2-way sync between both systems.
3. Instill a data-driven consultant culture
Put more focus on your team and ensure they have all the tools and knowledge to be better at their job. The start of the year is the perfect opportunity to help consultants understand their recruitment success ratios; CVs to interviews, 1st interviews to placements etc. January is a great time to prepare for prospecting and building pipeline, ratio’s are an ideal motivator to this.
TIP: Recruitment is a numbers game. You need to instill what numbers equal money for your consultants. Now is the perfect time, especially with all those new year credit card bills.
4. Engage with passive candidates
Your database is a gold mine. There are hundreds of candidates in your system that you’ve already sourced, met and qualified.
Take the time to sort through your database, get to know who is who, and when you secure a new role you’ll be able to do a quick search and find The One.
TIP: Take the time to nurture relationships with ‘old’ candidates – set up coffee catch-ups, invite them to industry events, and keep them engaged with emails. You can do this by segmenting candidates by last activity date and send targeted email campaigns to re-engage them.
5. Use AI for growth
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest tech trends in the recruitment industry, because it helps you make the right decisions for your recruitment business and guides you on the path to growth. For example, it can look at the patterns from your clients, candidates & consultants to find new opportunities. And if you need help with forecasting, it can tell you the number of meetings or calls you need to make to hit your target this quarter.
TIP: In addition to predicting and analyzing data, AI is a key factor in automating time-consuming, repetitive tasks such as screening resumes, and adding candidate details into your system. There’s a plethora of benefits of using AI, so find the right tools for your business asap.
6. Know the why, not just the ‘what’ behind your metrics
You may already know how you’re tracking in terms of targets vs actuals, net profit margin or sales growth year-to-date, but do you know what it actually means? It’s important to take the time to understand the reasons behind the numbers. A closer look might tell you that a particular consultant is not performing, or your advertising in a certain channel isn’t working.
TIP: There are many affordable recruitment analytics tools to help you get deep insights into your business, and make the right optimizations to your sales strategy. Find the right one for you. Or better yet, use a system that has analytics built-in right out-of-the box.
7. Dedicate time to networking
As a successful recruiter, you need to know who’s who. This includes potential clients, candidates and your peers in your industry. So ensure you make time to attend events, form connections and get to know as many people as you can in order to expand your business.
TIP: Look up the top recruitment or staffing association in your country, and join as a member. They generally offer many benefits to help you expand your database, including access to networking events.