How to Use Data Science and CRMs to Scale Your Recruiting Agency
The recruiting landscape has changed considerably over the years, and it’s going to continue evolving as applicant tracking systems (ATSs) and social platforms develop further.
Yet for many companies, the recruiting process itself remains the same as it ever was — or it has grown worse, bogged down by increasingly time-consuming processes.
According to a CEB survey, the time required to fill an open job increased by 50 percent between 2010 and 2016. This represents more than a loss of time for recruiters and hiring managers: The same survey found that the average vacancy costs around $500 per day, or $22,000 per month. The longer the recruiting process takes, the higher the cost of the vacancy.
The question is why have recruiting processes grown longer for many organizations? With the accessibility of critical data today, as well as the recent developments in data technology and practices, the recruiters should be able to fill vacancies more quickly. All it takes is the right tools and strategies.
At Headhuntr.io, we decided to find a way to combine data science, technology, and human insights to speed up the hiring process while still attracting quality candidates for ourselves and our clients. Here are the three strategies we’re using to grow our 50-person company at triple-digit growth rates this year:
1. Become a Data-Driven Business
We use a combination of data science, machine learning, natural language processing, and human insight to find qualified candidates who would otherwise be difficult to discover.
Data science helps us figure out what roles, skills, and products candidates know by pulling information from various social networks. While individuals don’t always list every single product or service they are knowledgeable in, that information can be inferred from employment data about current and recent employers. Armed with this data, our recruiters can identify and prequalify the best candidates for our open roles.
Creating a systemized and well-organized database of candidates allows us to easily identify people who would be the best fit for the positions we need to fill. What usually takes talent acquisition teams 2-3 weeks to do using traditional sourcing and screening only takes us a few days.
2. Architect Your Internal Systems to Scale
As recently as 2017, our sales team struggled to keep pace with our market opportunity. In part, our sales team was bogged down by manual data entry, which inevitably comes with using email and spreadsheets to store prospects’ contact information and track conversation histories. The sales team still faced many of the same manual search issues we solved from a recruitment perspective, and our people were spending a lot of time Googling prospective customers in order to qualify them.
While LinkedIn is a goldmine for sourcing valuable client leads, it’s no small task to sift through countless profiles in order to identify the right prospects and uncover contact details, company information, and relevant icebreakers. To solve this problem, we looked for a social CRM and sales intelligence tool capable of handling a large number of prospects and customer records, while also consolidating contact information and activity details for each customer into a central location.
For our purposes, we found that Nimble offered an affordable alternative with all the required functionality. Today, we spend less time qualifying prospective customers and more time making meaningful connections with them.
3. Mine Deep for Cross- and Upselling
We have also developed a novel approach for handling cross-selling and upselling opportunities. Instead of assigning salespeople based on geography or corporate territories, our sales personnel are assigned leads based on their expertise in specific roles. We view all departmental heads at prospective companies as potential sales targets.
For example, we have a salesperson who specializes in cybersecurity and focuses on prospects’ IT security departments. We have another person focused on finance, who approaches the finance team within the same company. This approach eliminates the problem of sales reps overlapping accounts while sharing business data, opening up many more opportunities.
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Headhuntr.io is continuing to grow. By applying data science, sales intelligence, and novel strategies to modernize our processes, we can shorten recruiting processes while still growing our customer base.
Oliver Deng is the Founder and CEO of Headhuntr.io.