Top Tips on Gathering Candidate Feedback – and why it’s a great idea to do so.

Recruitment Candidate FeedbackWith competition in the recruitment industry remaining fierce it is crucial to ensure your recruiters are regularly interacting with your candidates. Analysing candidate feedback can help your company meet internal gold standards and drive service improvements to provide candidates with the best possible recruitment experience.

One of the best ways your agency can develop how it engages with candidates is to ensure recruiters regularly ask them, placed or not, for feedback. Job seekers have numerous vacancy details at their fingertips and many recruitment agencies to choose from. With savvier job seekers agencies must be on top of their service, constantly looking for ways to improve candidate interaction and make sure their candidates are happy.

So what can you do to engage your candidates in order to gain feedback on your service offering? Here is our checklist:

# Monthly Surveys

– Surveys are a great way of interacting with candidates. Surveys can be conducted based on specific workflows and stages of the process. For example, send surveys to recently placed candidates requesting feedback on the application process along with feedback on their new job. Alternatively, ask for participation in a survey from those not placed to find out how your recruiters are handling the rejection process. This is a great way to find out how you can improve next time. Are your recruiters even informing candidates if they aren’t selected for a role?

It is crucial to have a consistent and respectful rejection process in order to build long-term relationships. Your recruiter may not have placed that candidate today, but in six months’ time they may have the perfect job for them. 

# Comment Cards

– These are great for engaging first-time candidates. Display cards in your office and ask candidates to complete them after their first interview. Ask how they felt they were treated, how you can improve and what services they would like to see next time.

# LinkedIn Recommendations

– This is all down to the individual recruiter. It is important they have a LinkedIn profile professionally representing their role within your agency. For many candidates, LinkedIn has become the ‘go to’ site prior to any interview. Not having a profile, or having a profile with little to no content or an unprofessional photo, can give a bad first impression of the company and the recruiter.

Rather than reaching out blindly to candidates, your recruiters will gain far more responses with a good LinkedIn profile backed up by recommendations from successfully placed candidates.

It is important your recruiters are selective when asking for recommendations. There’s no need to ask everyone they work with for recommendations, focusing on their A-star candidates can be far more beneficial. Understanding the importance of recommendations on LinkedIn will help your agency build a healthy and professional online profile. 

# Google+ and Facebook reviews

– Has your recruitment agency got a company page on these social media sites? If so, encourage and incentivise candidates to leave a review. Perhaps you can run monthly competitions to encourage candidates to provide feedback.

Creating a great impression first time around will ensure your candidates come back to you time and time again, trusting your brand and every individual recruiter. While you may not get positive feedback every time, all feedback is good for building a better candidate experience.

Contractor Recruitment: How Do You Ensure Repeat Business?

Contractors 200x200How do you effectively retain contractors and ensure consistently high levels of repeat business are achieved? Oliver Perilli, Senior Sales Executive, Adapt, shares some great tips for recruiters looking to be more effective when dealing with contractor populations

Once a contractor placement has been made, the right client and contractor aftercare activity throughout the following three, six or twelve months is vital to generating further business.

Retain your contractors

Be proactive about retaining your contractor for next time. Don’t wait for the contract to end and say “Right, now we need to find you more work or look to see if an extension is possible.” A contractor will appreciate you saying “Okay, your contract is due to end in a couple of months’ time, let’s start looking at what you can do immediately afterwards, so you don’t have a period without work.” Don’t leave things up in the air. This is great for you as well, because that contractor is less likely to be re-placed by another recruitment agency if they know their next contact is taken care of.

Know when their contracts end

Adapt Studio can help with the process of retaining contractors because it not only shows new starters and current contractors, it also shows contracts due to end. This allows for the opportunity of extensions, because Adapt alerts you in good time, ensuring you are well placed to proactively re-engage with clients and secure those contract extensions. There may even be the possibility of increasing the rates or recreating the contract terms proactively to ensure your contractors stay within their contracts and they’re renewed for a good period of time. Its win-win, good customer service and a good way to ensure your fees are regenerated.

Quickly find them new contracts

Of course, a contract may need to end and the client may not need that contractor anymore, but it’s best to know this upfront – then you can find work for them earlier. In Adapt Studio you can quickly drill-down into contractor’s records – then one click on InSight Match and you’ll soon be finding new contracts suitable for that individual. The sooner you start presenting your contractors to clients, the more chance you’ll have of placing them when their current contract ends.

Remember…

Making the most of the contractor population tools within your recruitment software will help you deliver great client and contractor customer service – and more retained contractors and placement fees will follow. It’s win-win.

erecruit™ Partners with Textkernel to Innovate the Candidate Search and Match Experience for the Staffing Industry

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Boston, MA – September 29, 2015 – Today, erecruit™, the leading innovator in enterprise staffing software, vendor management systems (“VMS”) and onboarding solutions, announced it has partnered with Textkernel, a leading-edge semantic recruitment technology company recently acquired by CareerBuilder, to bring the next generation semantic candidate search and match experience to the global staffing market. Textkernel will be seamlessly integrated with erecruit and included in the base product for all erecruit customers.

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Bond Adapt Launches Powerful Social Media Portal for Recruiters

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Bond Adapt, a sophisticated staffing and recruitment software system, today announces the launch of AdaptCentral – a powerful online social media portal that enables recruiters to post and manage job vacancy adverts and applications via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Using AdaptCentral recruiters will be able to tap into the vast online pool of candidate activity by posting job adverts to their social media pages and feeds. The system allows them to easily track online submissions and create candidate records within the Bond Adapt software for effective progression through the recruitment cycle. It will also instantly alert an agency’s followers to new vacancies and enable job seekers to apply in one click.

The new portal allows recruiters to see all job adverts and applications in one viewing window. Job advert templates are automatically created as soon as vacancies are uploaded into the Bond system to enable a fast, automated way to post across social media. Recruiters will be able to review and colour-code candidate applications by relevancy before creating new candidate records in their Adapt database.

Bond recognises that job seekers are using a vast array of places to search for new positions. For job seekers, the system allows them to apply for jobs via social media, with a one-click process that takes them to an AdaptCentral application screen to input their contact details and attach their CV, or use their LinkedIn profile. Start-up recruitment agencies that cannot afford their own online submission system will also benefit as it is an easy way to connect online vacancies with candidates across social media.

Toby Conibear, European Business Development Director, Bond International Software, comments “We pride ourselves in developing products that streamline business processes for recruitment consultants. From searching for clients to matching candidates and employers, the quality and efficiency with which consultants secure candidates is critical to productivity, candidate experience and of course client relationships. AdaptCentral will further bolster the way recruiters search for people and build their relationships across many social media platforms.”

Fill vacancies fast with SMS

firetext-logo-white650-650_1As a busy recruitment specialist, you probably spend lots of time on the phone to candidates updating them on their application and reminding them about interview details. If you have to do this for every candidate (and every vacancy) this can end up taking over your day! SMS messages can dramatically increase the speed that vacancies are filled by communicating with all candidates at once, without losing that personal touch; saving you money, resources and most importantly – precious time.

Integrating SMS with your Adapt software will enable you to send useful text messages to candidates from within your current software meaning you can send SMS with the click of a button, we’ve put together some ideas on why we think SMS is a great communication tool for recruiting:

Be discreet

Lots of candidates are already in employment when looking for a new job. By sending an SMS message instead of calling them, you’re updating them instantly whilst also keeping it discreet and not interfering with their working day. If you need to arrange an interview time or talk about their application, they can call back when it’s convenient to talk.  

Hello Holly, we’ve got some great news about your application! Give us a call when it’s convenient to arrange an interview time. Thanks, Recruitment Team

Update on application

Notifying and updating candidates of any changes to their application via SMS not only keeps them in the loop but is effortless for busy recruitment consultants and takes no longer than sending a message from your own phone!

Hello Holly, just checking in to let you know the applications are being reviewed today, we’ll let you know as soon as we hear any news!

Reach all candidates at once

Save time by using our personalisation tool and rather than sending a message to each candidate; reach out to all of them, in an instant with one message – individually personalised for each candidate. Upload contacts with first names, surnames and mobile number as well as three additional custom fields e.g. job reference or interview time.

Hello Holly, we’ve received your application for job ref: 5436 and are pleased to confirm an interview at 10am on Wednesday. Good luck!

Confirm appointments

A confirmation message or gentle reminder of appointment details is really handy for candidates, especially when it’s instantly available in their pocket. Add a link to the company website or direction details to ensure candidates have all the information they need at their fingertips.

Good luck with your interview on Wednesday at 10am. For more details on the company and directions to the office: www.dreamjob.com. Speak soon! Recruitment Team

Target industry groups

Contact groups of candidates with new job vacancies to generate some interest, split contacts up by industry to ensure you only target candidates interested in the job vacancy and let them get in touch if they are interested.

Hello Holly, we have an exciting 30k job in the marketing sector, based in London. If you’re interested you can simply reply to this text or call 01326 620 000

Generate interest with keywords

Set-up multiple keywords on you dedicated reply number or our shared shortcode and encourage people to text in with their interest. Advertise the keywords in your office window, your website or in print adverts providing candidates with a quick and easy way to show their interest.

Text APPLY to 82228 to show interest in this position.

Take this one step further and set up an auto-reply so that anyone texting in can be sure their enquiry has been received – you can even add a link into the auto-reply to enable candidates to apply instantly!

Thanks for your interest in our marketing vacancy, to see the full job description and application details click here: www.recruitment.com/application

Adding SMS to your communications toolkit will not only save you time, keep your communication costs down and help fill those vacancies quickly. It’s also a tried and tested way of staying in touch with candidates in a way we know they love, have access to and is guaranteed to be seen.

You can speak to your Adapt Customer Success Manager today about getting set-up with SMS. Or have a chat with our friends over at FireText about campaign ideas.

SYNETY Announces New Integration with Bond Adapt

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SYNETY, a leading cloud-based software and communications business, is pleased to announce the integration of CloudCall Chrome with Bond Adapt, a sophisticated staffing and recruitment software system.

Adapt manages the entire placement cycle, simplifies processes and provides consultancies of all sizes with cutting-edge tools; enabling recruiters to be as effective as possible and gain the competitive advantage.

CloudCall will provide Adapt users with functionality that allows them to drive advanced telephony functions directly – as well as on any webpage – using the CloudCall Chrome plugin. This will enable Adapt users to make calls directly from the CRM, with all calls being logged and recorded and available to download against the client and candidate record.

Mark Seemann, Chief Executive Officer of SYNETY, commented: “We are pleased that recruitment CRM companies such as Bond Adapt continue to choose to integrate their software with CloudCall. This integration addresses the need that recruitment businesses have to more effectively manage their candidate and client communications. CloudCall caters to this need by providing clear records of all candidate and client interactions within the CRM record.”

Tim Richards, Managing Director, Bond International Software, added: “For us, it is important that both the client and the candidate receive the best possible experience available from recruitment consultants and companies which use Bond Adapt software. As part of our ongoing commitment to this, we are pleased to be partnering with SYNETY and share the benefits of their advanced telephony functions with our clients.”

 

How can recruiters successfully work remotely?

working remoteSometimes the best talent doesn’t live close enough to your office to commute. Do you allow your recruiters to work remotely? How can teleworking be approached in terms of assuring productivity, motivation and commitment when not in the traditional office setting?

If you have a phone, a laptop and a solid internet connection, most office jobs can be done successfully from home. A recent survey showed that UK’s most productive employees work from home. With stats like these, ruling out a telecommuting agreement for the right person could limit you in terms of growing your business. A recruitment agency willing to offer the benefit of working off site can grow faster, and be represented in more cities throughout the UK, Europe or even worldwide.

In order to be successful, consider the following points:

Give them the right tools

Make sure your recruiters have the right equipment and are set-up for success at home. While Coffee shops are fine for interviews, it’s not the most professional setting for working all day long and no matter how disciplined you are, it’s ripe for distractions. Be sure the recruiter has a home office away from noise and the rest of the goings on in their family life. They need somewhere quiet to conduct their calls, and be able to focus on sourcing the best candidates.

A strong internet connection is key, especially if using a voice over ip phone connection too. If you have an internal network or shared folders, they will need to be able to access them. Do you have IT resources to help you set up a VPN or some other way of connecting back to the office? Or, if everyone is working remotely, do you use collaborative tools such as Trello, Dropbox or Google Docs?

Expect some teething issues

If this is your first time hiring someone to work outside of your office, be aware there may be challenges along the way. Don’t let it put you off, but consider everything you will expect your employee to be able to access. Do you use a cloud based recruitment software they can easily access online? Great! No worries there. However, if you are using something that uses a desktop client, have you opened up access so they can get connected?

In the first few weeks, make sure they test and check their ability to log on from home. You may need to invest in GoToMeeting, or another screen sharing tool that will allow you to help them as needed. Remember that they may become frustrated if they are missing tools that are vital to their job execution. Work through them together so you can both be successful moving forward.

Trust that work is being done

Don’t forget that people working from home need breaks too. If you call and they don’t answer, don’t assume the worst. Just like those in the office gathering in the break room, your remote worker deserves to make a cup of tea too! They are actually likely to take less time in doing so, and won’t get stopped several times as they make their way back to their desk!

Don’t feel like you need to check up on them constantly. As with anyone who is physically present in the office building, you will soon know if they aren’t completing their work and the standards are slipping. In fact, you will probably find that your remote workers may forget to stop working! It’s easy to keep going when you know you don’t have that commute home, so it can be tempting to continue on for an hour or so after ‘going home’ time. The same goes for starting the day, which can often begin long before any of the other recruiters make it in through all the traffic.

Don’t forget about us

If you don’t see someone in the office every day, you can be forgiven for forgetting them from time to time. Working from home can get lonely. Include them in group emails, check in on them from time to time just to say hello, and make them feel like part of the team. Ideally they will visit the office on a regular basis, even if it’s just once a month, but work with them to build the relationship and make them feel like a valuable member of the organisation.

Schedule weekly (at least!) update meetings that include your remote workers. They need feedback too, and not seeing them every day can mean that interaction gets missed that would naturally happen with other employees you see daily. 30 minutes each week will help keep the communication going.

It’s not for everyone

Remember, working from home is not for everyone. The recruiter has to be organised, motivated and able to focus every day without the ‘boss’ sitting in the same room. They must treat their home office just like they would if they were getting on the train every day, and manage to separate the two ‘spaces’.

So, when hiring your next recruiter, consider the endless possibilities of finding the right talent, if you open the door to them working from home.