What is a Recruiting CRM & Why Do I Need One?

Recruiting CRM

There’s a lot of confusion out there amongst recruiters about recruiting CRMs. The confusion likely stems from the lack of consensus surrounding the age-old ATS vs. CRM debate recruiters have waged for years over which recruiting technology is the best. To help alleviate some of the confusion, we’re providing a quick and easy overview of recruiting CRMs. Let’s start with what it is.

What is a Recruiting CRM?

At its core, a recruiting CRM is an ATS and a CRM in one system. This integrated system delivers recruiters with the workflow and compliance capabilities of a traditional ATS as well as the sourcing benefits of a full CRM. With a recruiting CRM, users can access all of the automated data they need for recruiting success all in one place. Like the chicken and the egg paradox, recruiters have to delicately balance sourcing and recruiting. It’s challenging to start recruiting talent for a role before there’s an open position, but at the same time, it’s important to have a pool of candidates to draw from when there’s a role to fill. A good chunk of the market chooses routes with a cheaper overhead and relies only on an ATS. This lets them get by, as the ATS can handle their workflows and compliance, but once a job order comes in, recruiters have a great deal of sourcing work to do. For companies that choose to manage sourcing through disparate platforms risk a reduction in productivity because their recruiters are forced to navigate multiple disconnected systems. The time that’s spent figuring out which system has a desired piece of information can be detrimental to efficiency. With a recruiting CRM, recruiters have the perfect compromise between sourcing and placement. They have an integrated, user-friendly system that accomplishes all the things they need from a workflow, compliance, and sourcing perspective, all while allowing them to work smarter and faster.

Do You Need a Recruiting CRM?

The primary advantage of a recruiting CRM is that users have the ability to utilize a singular, intuitive recruiting technology. Maintaining all recruiting information in one location grants recruiters extra time to do what matters most: making strong placements. All the labor-intensive tasks that occupy precious time (Sourcing passive candidates, digging through spreadsheets, pulling reports, downloading applicant information, parsing resumes, and managing candidate engagement) can be all either be sped up or completely automated by a recruiting CRM. With more time on their hands, recruiters can do more of the work they do best. To determine whether or not you could utilize the benefits and capabilities of a recruiting CRM, you first need to do a bit of analysis on your current recruiting technology and your recruiting process to see if you have the indicators suggesting you need a recruiting CRM. Here are the three most common indicators.

  1. Sourcing: A recruiting CRM is excellent for recruiters who are forced to reactively source. An ATS can only be reactive, but a recruiting CRM is proactive through its capability of syndicating your job postings across multiple platforms and job boards. A CRM can also be configured to review applicants for you, providing you with a segmented group of candidates you want to target.
  2. Collaboration: If your team is isolated with your current system, a recruiting CRM can drive collaboration and improve how your team interacts. Instead of each one of your recruiters keeping mental notes and relaying them to co-workers, recruiting CRMs allow for your team to quickly and easily upload candidates notes, status changes, candidate submissions, and interactions so that a team member can access the information themselves.
  3. Performance Analytics: A recruiting CRM provides a recruiting firm with an excellent glimpse into the overall team productivity. Instead of a simplistic report that only reveals a portion of the story, the sophisticated reporting tools of a recruiting CRM allow a firm to micro-analyze each recruiter’s performance, as well as analyze where candidates are coming from to make data-driven business decisions.
Filed under: Business Development, Recruiting Tips