5 Benefits of a Recruitment CRM & Top 3 Software Picks

Every successful business, organization or company, knows the value of being more than the sum of its parts. It's not something you can bottle and sell on the free market, but if it was, you can bet it would fetch top dollar.

But there is a far less fanciful and cost-effective solution.

So creating a real sense of culture and being ethically aligned with a group of people that share a vision and a passion should be the goal of any recruiter.

That, as it turns out, is a little harder than it sounds for various reasons.

You would think that acquiring the right person for any given position would fall into the ‘duh' category of business strategies. But so many companies repeatedly dip their toes into shallow talent pools or are so inundated with low-quality applicants that they seldom end up with a good fit. As a result, employee turnover rates are at an all-time high, and they can be a sizeable monkey on the backs of businesses irrespective of their size or industry.

One of the most effective ways to attract the hires you deserve and to keep these metaphorical primates at bay is by optimizing your hiring processes with a recruitment CRM. As many as 94% of HR professionals say recruitment CRMs have positively affected their ability to acquire the right talent.

Now you might know a little about them. You might know nothing at all. But what you will know by the end of this article is why this type of software is awesome and merits your attention.

So What is Recruitment CRM?

Recruitment CRM (Candidate Relationship Management) software does exactly what it says on the tin. It equips companies with the tools, metrics, and tracking systems they need to hire effectively and efficiently, saving them loads of time and money.

This software aims to remove many of the arduous tasks associated with bringing in new blood, streamlining complex vetting practices, and improving applicant experiences.

Need some help organizing your talent database? Sure you do, and the best recruitment CRM is the one that helps you achieve your ideal hires with the least amount of hassle.

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Think of it as having your very own, highly qualified assistant that handles all the nitty-gritty aspects of recruitment that allows you to focus on the bigger picture and what that means for your business.

Recruitment CRM vs. Application Tracking System

One of the essential parts of investigating any software is understanding your acronyms.

A recruitment CRM and recruitment ATS clearly are very different things. How can you tell? They have different acronyms, obviously. But aside from that, there are a few other vital distinctions to make.

Let's say you advertise for a job. Within hours, your inbox is stacked with hundreds of applications from eager candidates.

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How do you even start sorting through them?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) only starts working once applications have started flying through the door. It simplifies the recruitment process by using automation to screen through documents, finding only the best and most qualified candidates.

This means that when recruiters sit down to read applications, the best ones are already at the top of the pile. This is especially useful for large companies that attract thousands of candidates at a time - hence why 90% of Fortune500's use an ATS.

A CRM, on the other hand, comes into play long before applications are sent through. It works by using marketing strategies to build awareness with top candidates about your business and keeping top talent engaged with automated nurture campaigns.

Basically, a CRM attracts the top talent, and an ATS filters the applications once they come through.

Therefore, you guessed it, the two types of software work wonderfully together.

What Is Recruitment CRM Software For?

The aim of recruitment management software is pretty simple.

To make candidate relationship management the breeze it should be by aiding recruiters and hiring managers in their quest to discover the most outstanding talent in all the land.

By streamlining, organizing, and managing the processes associated with hiring, you can transform your brand and how you communicate with potential candidates in the present and the future.

There are all sorts of cool automation and customizations that you can deploy to engage your relevant talent pool and manage them to forge relationships over time.

Let's take a look at how they can help both recruiters and hiring managers in this quest.

How Recruitment CRM Software Benefits Recruiters

As a recruiter, your eyes need to be sharp. You are expected to spot your ideal candidates leopard crawling in full camo against the backdrop of a super competitive landscape and assess them right to down their molecular biology (or at the very least determine that they aren't one of the millions of people who have taken to creating fraudulent resumes).

So how do recruitment CRMs bring joy to the lives of recruiters?

• They allow you to create and segment your talent pool.
• Create and conduct candidate surveys.
• Send fully personalized communications via email or text.
• Use analytics to grow and nurture candidate relationships.
• Automated invites to workshops or events associated with the organization.

How Recruitment CRM Software Benefits Hiring Managers

If the recruiter's job is to lay up a selection of well-qualified, well-suited, and well-meaning candidates that can take the company forward. Then it's up to the hiring manager to ensure that a suitable slam dunk follows.

A tough job, no doubt. But with the help of a recruitment CRM, things become a whole lot easier.

"But how?" I hear you chin rub. Well, for starters...

• By proactively engaging the market.
• Growing the company brand and ensuring a stellar reputation.
• Using advanced analytics to provide insights into your ideal candidates.
• Significantly reducing hire time.
• Significantly improving the quality of those hires.

Benefits of Recruiting CRM Software for Different Industries

In all honesty, there really isn't a single industry that wouldn't benefit from a CRM that streamlines the hiring process. Any company, irrespective of sector, is only as good as its talent, and that's why getting the right candidate is so crucial.

Being able to designate mundane and time-consuming jobs while using quality data to drive decision-making is something any company could use.

That said, a handful may be able to glean a little more from the tools on offer. And those are the ones we are going to explore.

Customer Service

The customer service industry has long been a fan of recruitment software, and with good reason too. In fact, it is among the top three sectors that make use of a recruitment CRM across the board.

Being almost entirely client-facing, customer service hires are essential for many reasons. They are the first point of contact, and much of a customer's impression of the company itself is derived from how they are treated in times of distress or frustration.

Recruiters, however, should never entirely remove the human aspect of choosing a new employee. Instead, of seeing it as something that challenges the integrity of ‘gut feel' let it hold your hand and inform your decisions.

Retail

After the last twelve months, those who rely on retail for their therapeutic needs would have found help in short supply thanks to COVID. But finally, the backbone of capitalism is back up and running and ready for the usual flood of applications that sees it make our list.

With the sheer volume of applicants for retail jobs, the industry can stand to benefit more than most from the segmentation and automation available to CRM recruiters. It's also a sector that has suffered from shocking turnover rates at the cost of millions and millions of dollars annually.

Food & Beverage

From the top-down, the food and beverage industry is brimming with candidates from diverse backgrounds using a variety of skills. I mean, we've all seen Ratatouille, right?. It is almost one moving, breathing entity responsible for all the yummy things we ingest wherever we go in the world.

But it is a notoriously tricky sector to recruit in due to the wildcard human element present in any cafe, bakery, hotel, or restaurant. Choosing the right candidate could depend on culture as much as any experience or skills, and a recruitment CRM will allow you to assess potential staff accordingly.

Market Research

Any recruiter software worth its salt already has the innate ability to segment, store and organize candidates across a host of categories and demographics, making it the perfect tool to use for reliable market research.

Much of any market research success comes from accurately targeting potential candidates with a few things in common who can provide the insights and information required. Now, with the touch or click of a button, market researchers can build whole lists of suitable candidates with whom they can communicate and actively engage.

It's another sector that relies heavily on turning swathes of applications into discernible, useable data that may become relevant at any time.

Common Problems Faced by Hiring Managers

As anyone who is involved in recruiting or hiring will tell you, it's a veritable minefield with your wits tested as much as your patience as you seek to make the right choices. One ill-considered step and the whole thing goes up in smoke.

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It's an unenviable task at times, but someone needs to make the big calls that will ultimately shape the organization and its culture. This is exactly why it makes sense to be as well-informed as humanly possible.

With great power comes great responsibility.

So what are the issues that most commonly afflict our hiring managers?

• Attracting ideal candidates
• Getting the hire wrapped up A.S.A.P.
• Engaging the most qualified candidates
• Using Stone-Age data collection techniques
• Difficulty building and maintaining the brand
• Recruiting without bias or favor

Once you know the problem, however, it becomes easier to find their solutions. And that's what we'll be getting stuck into next.

5 Ways a Recruiter CRM Software Can Improve Hiring Process

1. Winning The Talent War

Whether recruiters are aware of it or not, there is a full-scale talent war currently being waged in the market, and companies are now having to be more vigilant than ever before to ensure that they get the right people in the door.

The very best in the business have the same approach to candidates as they do to their customers. Much of that is borne out in their marketing efforts and communication, but you need to act the part in addition to being visible.

Recruitment CRMs can help you put your name up in lights and attract talent like a moth to a flame.

By bashing down the doors of the digital realm and opening yourself up to a whole new world of potential employees. This means everything from mobile optimization to SEO best practices and making yourself visible across the spectrum of job seekers' practices. Such is the turning of the tides that it's now widely accepted that you don't pick top talent. Top talent picks you.

Think we're making this up? Think again. According to G2, over 98% of all Fortune 500 companies are now using a recruitment CRM to ensure they stay ahead in the never-ending search for top talent.

2. Engagement, Engagement, Engagement

Was it necessary to put that word in the title three times? Possibly not. But it truly cannot be overstated just how critical engagement is when it comes to recruitment.

So many excellent potential hires have fallen by the wayside in recent years because companies lack the resources or the intent to keep them interested.

A recruitment CRM can change that in a big way. Not only can they automate any responses and keep candidates aware of any openings, but they serve as ongoing communication between the company and your talent database.

How many applications have never seen the light of day because candidates grow frustrated with radio silence or waiting months for a simple reply? Unfortunately, too many is the answer. With the help of a recruitment CRM, you can streamline all your communication and add value to any conversation.

Did you know that as many as 73% of all job seekers are doing so passively? Now, we aren't suggesting they are just ‘vibing,' but it does leave considerable wiggle room for a more proactive approach. One that can be easily achieved and maintained with such a CRM.

3. Building Candidate Relationships

We know it's hard to turn down candidates you like, but there can be only one. The chosen one. But that doesn't mean that you cast the others aside and spurn their initial affection for the company. Quite the opposite, actually.

If the hire didn't work out at the time or for that specific position, but you were seriously considering them, why wouldn't you want to keep in touch?

This is especially true of larger companies with multiple departments where a particular skill set is needed across various positions but equally applicable to any organization.

CRM recruiting allows you to keep these candidates in the loop about future openings and encourage them to apply when the time comes. How you interact with these potential candidates outside of the hiring process is arguably as important as when you are trying to bring them aboard. Tailor your communication to build your reputation within a community that has already expressed an interest in joining, and make sure you never rue the one that got away.

It's a sad state of affairs that candidate resentment has risen a whopping 40% since 2016 and speaks to the attitude of companies who treat applicants as though they were disposable resources. CRMs for recruitment protect not only the brand but also the integrity of your candidate relationships. What a lovely coincidence.

4. Understanding Your Own Data

In today's world of instant gratification, the time has never been worth more money. You have a small window in which to work, and the longer that window stays open, the more it will cost you. With competition for talent reaching ahead, it's imperative you know which strategies are worth pursuing or if a change of tac is needed to reach your desired audience more effectively.

When you employ recruitment CRM, you can gauge the efficacy of your campaigns across every platform and get valuable insights using the data from previous efforts.

This allows you to build campaigns and tailor communication according to tangible historical success or holes in the bucket that need plugging.

You can measure your hire times, see which channels provide the highest quality candidates, and discern whether your marketing budget is garnering bang for its buck. Is the hiring process solid? Is it being followed to the letter? You can ask so many good questions that will ultimately lead to better hires, and a recruitment CRM can answer all of them.

5. Establishing A Reputation

One of the most highly valued currencies in business is credibility. People need to trust the brand, and they need to trust those who represent it. But that kind of reputation isn't earned overnight. Indeed it isn't earned over several nights.

It takes a concerted effort to uphold a set of values and project them in every action, either publicly or privately.

And here's where CRM recruitment software shines because, with the amount of personalization and automation at your fingertips, it really doesn't take much effort at all. In days gone by, the personal touch might have equated to licking every envelope individually and sealing it with sprits of perfume. Now? All you need is to get your house in order. Choose a voice and an identity that you believe best represents what you're trying to do, and watch your recruitment CRM do the rest.

Measure the quality of your conversations. Companies do a lot of talking without saying much these days, and separating yourself from the herd in that regard is made easy with consistent messaging. Glassdoor suggests that 75% of candidates are more likely to apply to positions within a company that actively manages its brand.

3 Best Recruitment CRM

Recruiting CRM software can help streamline and automate your recruiting process and give you access to a comprehensive database of candidates. Plus, when used correctly, they can save you time and money.

So if you're looking for the best recruitment CRM, here are some of the top 3 options.

1. Ringy

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The recruitment process can often be tedious and time-consuming, but Ringy makes it easy with its capabilities as a complete CRM for recruitment. With Ringy, users can maximize recruitment with intuitive features like candidate tracking and automated workflows.

It allows teams to quickly reach out to potential candidates and focus on their best prospects. Ringy helps recruiters stay organized by managing all recruiting data in one place and providing a unified view of activities that help make the most of every opportunity.

Take our SMS drip campaigns, for example. Ringy provides a powerful way to automate outreach and follow-up with candidates, no matter how busy recruiters get. It also offers automated reminders that keep the recruitment process on track while allowing teams to create custom messages that best represent their brand.

This makes it easy to see which stage each candidate is at and how best to move them forward in the recruitment process.

Ringy also offers a range of automation tools that help reduce manual work and free up time for recruiters. For instance, recruiters can automate interview scheduling to ensure quick and efficient communication with candidates.

Additionally, Ringy’s team collaboration features make it easy for teams to stay up-to-date on each applicant’s progress.

Whether you are recruiting a few new employees or ramping up your hiring efforts, Ringy can be the proper recruitment CRM for you. Try Ringy today and see how it can help make your recruiting process easier and more efficient.

2. Jobvite

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Jobvite is widely used by some of the world's biggest and most successful companies, and it offers a comprehensive set of features to help companies attract and hire the best talent.

The platform includes an intuitive applicant tracking system that makes it easy to organize and manage job postings, track applications, store resumes, and communicate with candidates.

It also includes analytics to help recruiters identify trends in their recruiting efforts and measure the effectiveness of their sources.

As a bonus, Jobvite also integrates with various job boards and social media sites to make finding, attracting, and hiring the right people easier. All in all, Jobvite is a great choice if you’re looking for the best recruitment CRM.

3. Manatal

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Manatal is another great recruitment CRM that streamlines the recruiting process and makes it easier for recruiters to stay organized. It has automated workflows, a built-in candidate database, an ATS integration to help you better track candidates, and advanced search capabilities.

It also has AI-based candidate matching, which helps recruiters quickly find the best fit for their organization. With Manatal, you can easily keep track of your recruiting efforts, get insights into the best hiring practices, and optimize the process for better results.

Additionally, it comes with a personalized dashboard, giving you a better overview of the recruiting process. Manatal is one of the best recruitment CRMs on the market. It helps streamline the recruiting process, so you can focus more on efficiently finding the right talent for your organization.

FAQs

How Much Does a Recruitment CRM Cost?

While free versions of recruiting CRM software are hard to come by, you can still get excellent value from the paid ones. You can expect to pay anywhere between $500 and $2000 per user per year though much of that investment is determined by how many of the features you need.

How to Set Up Recruitment CRM?

The first thing you'll want to do before literally anything else is to do some shopping around. Check out the reviews. What are people saying about their customer service? How often do they update their software? Does it have what you need? Does it have too much? These are the kinds of questions you should be asking.

In Summary

The bottom line is this. Anyone who continues to labor on with traditional recruitment techniques knowing full well software exists that eliminates any need to waste time on them is either a masochist or a moron. Ok, that's a little harsh, but you get the point.

There is no excuse for employers not to invest in a recruitment CRM in 2022, given the countless success stories from businesses of all sizes in every corner of the world.

Creating a tangible, tethered link to talent and building relationships that could benefit both parties in the present and the future is something to which every company should aspire. Be a brand that speaks to its people. Not in a culty way, but proactively. And eventually, your reputation will speak for itself, and the talent will come to you.

The numbers don't lie. So if you're serious about hiring the right people with access to a diverse range of candidates that can legitimately elevate your business, then a recruitment CRM like Ringy is precisely what you need.