Using Technology for Growth
When business leaders are looking for ways to grow their company, it is important to look for ways to expand without overextending resources. Since labor costs can account for up to 70% of a company’s overhead, rarely would simply adding more bodies be the silver bullet many firms are hoping it is. For most, finding smart, efficient tech solutions is going to get you much further. Read on and we will show you how you can leverage the future’s today’s recruiting and automation technology to accelerate your growth (without adding headcount).
The good news for the staffing and recruiting industry is that sales have more than doubled since 2009. If your firm is crushing those averages, you have earned well-deserved kudos. On the other hand, if you aren’t quite achieving those growth numbers, then bookmark this article and read on!
How do you grow, though?
According to BusinessDictionary.com, business growth is defined as “The process of improving some measure of an enterprise’s success. Business growth is achieved by improving the top line or revenue of the business through product sales or service income, or by increasing the bottom line or profitability of the operation through cost reductions.”
In laymen’s terms, if you want to grow your staffing firm, you need to do one or all of the following:
- Increase Revenue. Short of having a magic wand, your effort to increase revenue is going to take planning. First, an honest assessment of your firm’s overall performance can lead you to understand where and why you are falling short of revenue targets. Key stakeholders should be involved in determining where growth opportunities may exist and what changes can be made to enhance revenue generation.
- Reduce Costs. Part of the analysis for increasing revenue should also focus on cost reduction opportunities. Are there obvious areas of wasted time or busywork? Are recruiters and sales teams wasting time on inefficient processes? Is there overhead or spend that isn’t necessary (or even ways to negotiate lower costs)? Answering these questions periodically allows you to keep your finger on the pulse and avoid hidden costs that erode your bottom line.
- Improve Market Share. Unless you are planning on bringing new services to the market, the best way you can improve market share is by being better than your competitors. This includes streamlining your processes, strengthening your candidate and client relationships, and improving your firm’s reputation and visibility.
At the end of the day, growth can be realized by doing more with less…or by doing more with the same. Often the best way to do this is through technology… and automation.
What would happen to your bottom line if you could double, or even triple the output for each of your recruiters or salespersons?
Which technology?
For most staffing and recruiting firms, there’s a ton of technology getting thrown (emailed) at you every day. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), marketing platforms, recruitment automation, internal job engines, external job boards, sourcing tools, data hygiene tools… Who’s brain hurts?
There are dozens of individual technology solutions in the marketplace, but instead of thinking about products, step back, and consider a platform. Imagine a solution that enables you to connect all of your recruiting, marketing, automation, and sales needs, all within a single connected ecosystem!
A product can help you solve one to a few specific challenges that you are facing. And, without a consolidating platform, you are going to have a bunch of separate products that don’t talk to each other. But, when you look at a robust technology platform, you are implementing key functionality across your entire organization as well as a point of integration for other applications.
How can technology increase revenue?
Bullhorn surveyed over 900 staffing and recruitment professionals and found that a whopping 79% of them are expecting their revenues to increase in the coming year! Let’s face it, the economy is humming along, and there are a lot of jobs to go around. For now.
So, how are staffing and recruitment insiders planning to make revenue growth happen? More than half (57%) cited that they plan to spend more on technology. Let’s look at how technology can help you increase revenue:
- Automating repetitive processes frees up recruiters and the sales team to focus more on revenue-producing activities. At the same time, candidates, clients and leads all have a better experience within the process, leading to a higher likelihood of conversions and repeat business. By the way, in a LinkedIn survey, talent stated that being contacted by their recruiter helps them accept a job offer faster.
- Marketing automation drives solid leads to recruiters and salespeople, giving them an opportunity to close deals while the website, content, email and social media work for them.
- Automating data hygiene, from your automation platform directly to your ATS, can ensure that marketing, sales, and recruitment efforts are getting to the right people by cleaning up your data, reducing dead ends, and ultimately saving your recruiters and salespeople hella time.
All of your teams can benefit from the ABCs above. And with effective technology and automation they can focus on Alec Baldwin’s ABCs (Always Be Closing)… Always.
How can technology reduce costs?
According to LinkedIn, 87% of active and passive candidates are open to new job opportunities, but only 30% of that group are considered active job seekers. What is this telling you? That when you continually throw money at job boards, paid ads, and other pricey candidate sourcing tools, you are only reaching 30% of the talent pool, at best.
Technology, specifically marketing and recruitment automation along with your proprietary database, can help you effectively get in front of the passive candidates in your ATS, increasing conversions (and your margins), while reducing your sourcing costs.
Let’s dive a little deeper.
- Process automation means that recruiters and salespeople aren’t bogged down with one-off follow-up emails, updating records, adding notes, or data cleanup. If you reduce this wasted time, you reduce costs. Remember, your recruitment and sales teams are your biggest resource, automate what you can so they can do what they do best (close deals).
- Not only can you reduce busywork with automation, you can make sure that the selling process is supported by a warm, hot even, the pipeline of candidates and leads. Marketing automation does the nurturing for you and makes sure no contact falls through the cracks. A nurtured database of leads means you aren’t scrambling to source on 13 (expensive) job boards for a submittal, like yesterday.
- High tech solutions allow you to say goodbye to costly and dated recruitment and marketing tactics (ahem direct mail… ineffective banner ads… not that we’re pointing any fingers).
How can technology help me gain market share?
Market share for staffing companies includes share of clients (or hiring organizations) as well as share of the candidate market.
It is important to note, in the U.S., there are almost 20,000 staffing and recruitment firms, operating close to 39,000 offices. Further, the staffing industry only employs about 2% of the entire workforce. This tells us that there is market share to gain, both from other staffing firms as well as employers.
Additionally, business leaders are finding that their workforce is more liquid than ever before, driving an increase in the numbers of workers who enter the temporary and staffing workforce. This is the growth that staffing and recruiting firms must capture. I know, now you are asking yourself, “how can technology help me capture that growing market?”
Marketing. Automation. What’s better than really great marketing? Marketing that is automated. Typically, staffing and recruitment firms target two distinct audiences to fill two separate pipelines – Candidates and Client Leads. If you can get more of those (for a good price), you will gain market share.
With smart marketing automation, you gain the ability to orchestrate lead nurturing campaigns that put the right message in front of the right candidate (or sales lead) at the optimal time. Not to be overlooked is the fact that your automated processes will be giving candidates (and clients) a better overall experience.
Glassdoor tells us that the most important factors in creating a positive experience include clear and regular communication (58% of respondents), clearly outlined expectations (53%), and feedback regarding any rejections (51%). All of these touchpoints can be facilitated through automation, resulting in more candidate conversions and more time for recruiters to be closing. Boom, mic drop! Your candidate share has increased.
Another way to gain market share by keeping the prospects and clients you already have is through automated AND timely Net Promoter® Score (NPS) and other feedback surveys. Gathering insight into your client and candidate experiences is important to continually improve the overall process and approach you take with both audiences. You’ll get to enjoy the added bonus of increased redeployment from satisfied, engaged, and happy candidates as well as more referrals from candidates and clients alike. Everyone wins.
Final Thoughts
Automation technology is changing the way staffing and recruiting firms work, helping them supercharge sales and recruitment processes while reducing repetitive tasks and automating perfectly timed marketing campaigns.
Learn how companies like yours are using automation to:
- Automate routine processes and eliminate busywork
- Engage at scale with candidates, clients, and contract employees
- Collect continuous feedback and NPS data
- Drive more revenue from the ATS
