Recruiting Systems in the Credit Crunch

Stop cutting costs and instead engage new clients
With all the doom and gloom of economic recession, recruiters are starting to search frantically for cost cutting tools. Rather than focusing just on cost cutting you must also focus on revenue generation. As your clients start to reduce their headcount, you will need good systems to help you identify new clients and promote your services to them in a way that is relevant to their needs.

Applying the principles of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to recruitment requires that you consider two distinct groups of customers: your candidates and your clients. These groups can be further divided into existing and potential customers. To engage potential candidates and clients, you need robust systems to track and send relevant communications.

Keep your back office in order
Whatever the state of your incoming requisitions; you must make sure that your back office is efficient, effective and well organised. During the credit crunch and potentially through an economic recession, managing your back office is not just about managing costs. Securing or losing deals with clients will depend on your back office.

If you have clearly defined systems for doing business, clients will find it easier to do business with you. In the past, clients valued your services based on quality and price. As the pressure of recession builds, your clients will place more emphasis on a new devaluing factor â€“stress. If your systems and communications make doing business with you less stressful, you will become a highly attractive supplier.

Don't let an IT disaster add to your challenges
With credit tight and your clients slowing hiring rates, you cannot afford IT problems that steal your valuable time, limit your productivity or allow relationships with clients and candidates to deteriorate through poor communication. You can inoculate your recruitment agency against the threat of a crippling IT disaster by following some simple steps:

1. Backup your data - This is the single most important step you must take to ensure recover disaster strikes

2. Keep your data on a secure server - a hosted solution may not be the best place for your intellectual property

3. Clean your recruitment database - delete old contacts and identify which clients might benefit from a stay-in-touch email

4. Document your systems - Prepare and maintain a list of your software applications and make sure you back up data from each program

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