Why Should I Bother with Candidate Engagement?

Most recruiters seem to agree that finding new, talented candidates can be a right pain in the…knee. You put all of your energy into tracking down the top talent and searching through a million duff CV’s in search of a speck of gold dust. It really is no mean feat. But hats off to you, you’ve managed it hundreds of times before. Which means…wait! You already have hundreds of candidates on your database that you KNOW are good. So why are you ignoring them? What if that absolute gem of a candidate from 3 years ago is ready to move on? Would you know? Unless you’re making an effort to engage with your database, that candidate will soon be someone else’s, and you’ll be back to the drawing board.

And that’s not all. Check out my top 4 reasons why you should bump candidate engagement up in your priorities:

Reduced costs

If you can fill jobs without having to advertise them on job boards, you’re saving yourself a small fortune. Soon to be a big fortune, as it looks like job boards will be hiking up prices this year . And who doesn’t like saving a bit of cash when they can?

Known entity

Ever called a candidate, had a video interview, then a face to face interview and still just…weren’t quite sure? The experience was there, the skills were there, but for some reason your recruitment spidey-sense just wasn’t feeling it. We’ve all been there, and the more experience you have the more you realise this gut feeling tends to be bang on the money.

The great thing about placing candidates that you’ve worked with before is that you know they’re genuine. You know they’re not lying about their work history, that they’re reliable and ultimately unlikely to let you or your client down when you place them in a new job.

Good word of mouth

Place a candidate once, and they’re probably going to be quite pleased with you. Place them twice and they’re going to start sharing the love. Slipping in your agency’s name when they’re telling their friends how they landed their new job that they quite simply freaking love…and mentioning you again when their friends tell them how fed up they are with their job. You really can’t put a price on good word of mouth and referrals. Happy candidates will do this for free, and most likely will have friends/colleagues in the same sector as them who they can send your way too.

Faster placements

If you’re engaging with candidates who are already in your database, you really will save a heap of time. No need for job board advertising, going through what feels like a million CV’s, followed by the revolving door of calling and interviewing numerous candidates. You’ve already done the legwork last time, meaning that placing them this time round should be easy as pie.

So what are you waiting for? Get your database engaged (email marketing and job alerts are a great place to start) and crackling with activity and start seeing the benefits!