Do Recruiters Who Use Recruitment Tech Win More Business?

Recruitment tech doesn’t necessarily result in more clients… but if your recruitment business uses recruitment tech you almost certainly make more money.

It’s a simple formula. When your recruitment firm looks more sophisticated and technologically advanced, you stand a better chance of hooking in the most lucrative clients.

You also get to charge more.

When your recruitment business firm is using technology that can offer improved outcomes, it’s reasonable to quote prices that are higher than a recruitment firm that provides a simpler, less in-depth service.

But the real difference comes in the form of the contract…

Less Retained Business = More Profits

When you can offer a more technologically-advanced recruitment service, it becomes that much easier to convince prospects to hire you on a retained basis.

This is a crucial step in understanding why technology is the key to improving your overall profits.

When you’re working on a contingency basis, you might be able to engage with more clients overall, but this is offset by the fact that you don’t get paid for all of your work.

Most contingency-based recruiters only successfully fill 10-30% of the roles they work on. But even if you’re the outlier and can push that up to 40%, or even 50%, you’re still only getting paid half a day for a full day’s work.

By contrast, when your recruitment firm works with a client on a retained basis your typical fill rate is going to be closer to 100%.

This means that retained recruiters can work on half as many roles as the average contingency recruiter, but earn more fees overall.

Fees that are also higher than the industry average.

There is a caveat to all of this though: You need to be able to show your prospects that the recruitment tech your firm is using is going to produce a MEASURABLE improvement in the eventual outcome.

Use of recruitment tech is becoming increasingly common and you can no longer impress employers simply by showing them the bare minimum.

You need to show them the tech you’re using, and then convince them that it’s essential to getting the result they need.

Let’s take a look at some of the most useful recruitment tech that’s currently available, and how best to use it to close more retained business on higher than average terms.

What Recruitment Tech are Recruitment Business Owners Using?

Video Introductions/Interviews: These are almost ubiquitous for senior roles. They can take the form of a freestyle introduction recorded by the candidate, or a series of videos responses to pre-arranged questions (CLICK HERE to learn more about recruitment video tech).

Behavioural Assessments: Usually completed via an online questionnaire, these assessments provide invaluable information on a person’s temperament, their preferred working style and their attitude towards things like training, management and co-operation (CLICK HERE to learn more about the use of behavioural assessments in recruitment). 

Candidate Delivery Platforms: All the information compiled on the shortlisted candidates can be easily uploaded, organised and presented to the client in an easily-digestible, easily-accessible online format. Emailing a collection of disparate CVs to the employer is massively inconvenient in comparison, so this should be a minimum level of tech for every recruitment business (CLICK HERE to learn more about candidate delivery platforms).

Application Automation: The candidate is taken through an automated series of steps involving video, quizzes and questionnaires. Because of their impersonal nature they are well-suited to filling entry-level roles with large numbers of applicants, but less helpful for recruiting senior positions.

Cutting Edge: There are numerous technologies available or in development that claim to make use of concepts such as artificial intelligences, big data, blockchain and machine learning. There are some exciting possibilities on the horizon, but right now much of it is overhyped or unproven. It’s worth paying attention to this area, but is unlikely to offer a good return on investment at this stage.

Why Should Recruiters Use Recruitment Tech?

Firstly, there is no recruitment pitch that can’t be improved by demonstrating to the prospect the technology that you use. The more transparent you are about your recruitment processes, the more your prospect will come to trust you.

Secondly, and more importantly, if you’re using the right recruitment tech in the right way, it can measurably improve your outcomes and your clients’ experience.

Recruitment tech can be shown to…

• Improve retention rates for new hires (to 96%).
• Reduce the amount of time clients spend on the process (by speeding up decision-making and reducing the number of people that need to be called to a face-to-face interview).
• Improve onboarding and training of new hires.
• Reduce the costs associated with bad hires.

These two elements go hand in hand. Being able to show a prospect that the recruitment tech you’re using can improve the overall outcomes increases the likelihood of the pitch being successful.

Is There a Wrong Way to Use Recruitment Tech?

There’s certainly no point in using recruitment tech simply so you have something new to add to your website. Any recruitment tech you use should increase your profits by MORE than the cost of using the tech, otherwise it’s just a drain on your recruitment business.

When you’re using new recruitment tech, track your numbers carefully to see if you’re winning more business as a result.

A second trap to avoid is to sign up to lots of different technology services from different providers. This can leave you with the unenviable task of trying to cobble together numerous applications that don’t always want to talk to each other properly.

Either add technology slowly, one step at a time, or use a unified platform. i-intro®, for example, offers the most useful recruitment tech applications within a single online platform.

Finally, don’t invest in recruitment tech and just assume that the recruiters in your business will immediately embrace it. Take the time to train them (or use a recruitment tech provider that includes training) on how to use the tech.

You’ll have more success in this area if you can show the recruiters how using the tech will ultimately improve their outcomes and their fees. Otherwise, they’ll eventually stop using the tech and go back to the old way of doing things.

How do You Pitch Recruitment Tech to a Prospect?

As mentioned earlier, it’s important to show your prospect how your recruitment tech is going to improve their lives.

Ultimately, this boils down to how you can save them time and money.

For example, when recruiters use i-intro® as part of their pitch, they can literally perform a calculation with the Bad Hire Calculator that proves the employer will save hundreds of thousands of pounds by using their service.

This is a powerful hook that is responsible for many retained recruitment wins.

Additionally, everyone loves to hear that you can make their lives easier. Demonstrate how your recruitment tech will reduce their downtime, reduce time spent on decision-making and reduce the number of interviews they’ll need to conduct before making a hire.

The Window is Closing…

We’ve been in this game long enough to remember when using email instead of a fax machine was a big deal.

The recruitment industry has come a long way since then.

Recruitment tech is no longer in the testing phase. It’s here, it’s widely available and it’s proven to improve outcomes for the recruiter, the candidates and the employers.

In short, if you don’t already have at least one piece of recruitment tech operating in your business, you’re going to look like you’re out of touch. We’re almost at the point where employers EXPECT you to be using some kind of technology, especially if you’re recruiting mid-level or senior roles.

The most effective way you can use recruitment tech, right now, is to choose something that makes it easier to win RETAINED contracts, and that is proven to generate more profits for the recruiters that use it.

i-intro® has helped hundreds of recruitment business owners develop or expand their retained recruitment solution by providing proven recruitment tech and training support for their recruiters.

If you’d like more information or you’d like to arrange a free demonstration, just CLICK HERE.