What Is Connected Recruiting?

In Bullhorn’s recent GRID Talent Survey of 2,000+ perm, freelance, and temp workers in North America and the UK, 70% said they want human interaction during the search and placement process. In a time when the talent shortage is top of mind, how can recruiters consistently engage with talent in a way that’s both intentional and scalable? Enter Connected Recruiting, Bullhorn’s new methodology that empowers staffing firms to engage talent at every stage of the talent lifecycle. 

By leveraging Connected Recruiting best practices, staffing firms can better engage talent throughout the recruiting lifecycle while growing their database, increasing redeployment, and lowering the cost of talent acquisition. Firms that leverage technology to better engage with talent throughout the recruitment lifecycle are poised to reduce time spent on manual tasks and better utilize data to proactively improve the talent experience.

But there’s more to Connected Recruiting than just implementing technology or automation. Gordon Burnes, CMO at Bullhorn, summed it up during our Engage Boston 2022 event: “Connected recruiting is not just about buying an app or technology; it’s about organizational alignment and a strategy about managing the talent relationship and lifecycle.”

Read on to learn how staffing firms are already implementing this strategy and seeing great results. 

What is the talent lifecycle — and how can Connected Recruiting transform it?

The talent lifecycle covers each step involved in recruiting, hiring, and onboarding talent, from attracting candidates and improving database engagement to successfully onboarding talent and increasing the redeployment rate. By implementing Connected Recruiting strategies, testing, and then making incremental changes, you can transform each step of the lifecycle, including:

Attract: Pull talent in through job boards and follow up right away to ensure they don’t slip through the cracks.

Engage: Engage the talent already in your database with the right message, at the right time, for the right opportunities.

Onboard: Deliver a seamless and positive experience in the lead-up to the first day and throughout the first weeks on the job.

Nurture: Proactively nurture throughout their assignment so you can easily engage them for their next role, increasing the rate of redeployment.

Adam Sprecher, Vice President of Strategy and Development at Salo, shared during Engage Boston that Connected Recruiting can impact each stage of the talent lifecycle through continuous iteration and analysis: “There are different phases and touchpoints of the candidate journey. Understanding that [journey] better with testing can help you know what team, talent, and tools need to be involved.”

What are the benefits?

While we only recently introduced this methodology, the core strategies within Connected Recruiting have been vital to staffing firms for years. The ongoing talent shortage, rising expectations from talent and clients, and increasing pressure to keep internal teams happy and productive only underscore the importance of continual engagement with talent.  After all, if you’re not effectively attracting, engaging, onboarding, and nurturing candidates, it’s likely your competitors will. 

Applying the principles of Connected Recruiting often starts with building stronger relationships with your marketing team, as explained by Vanessa Fucciani, President of Triple Crown: “Redeployment was a metric that we hadn’t looked at three or four years ago, and now we look at redeployment every week. We do a lot of work with the marketing team so that we’re always top of mind with our candidates and clients. We want to ensure we’re working with someone on their next engagement. We now contact them right before their assignment ends and try to get them redeployed within eight weeks.”

What else can you do with Connected Recruiting? Check out these highlights of success stories from customers implementing Connected Recruiting and seeing incredible benefits so far:

• Allen Recruitment sees over 60% of their placements come from their database. “It’s all about making more placements out of the candidates we have in our database. That’s the game.” – Brian Cunningham, Allen Recruitment
• Conexus has seen some mind-blowing results in a very short amount of time. “Emails to lapsed candidates, even after years of no activity, average a 10% response rate. This translates to hundreds of candidate interactions a month for us.” – Will Sawney, Conexus
• Signature Consultants has been able to increase its redeployment rate to 30%. “Our redeployment has been exceptionally high—around 30%—and automation has been a component of that success.” – Mandy Franje, Signature Consultants

Where do you start?

Whether you are an experienced recruiting automation user or are just getting started, here are recruitment-specific automations that you can implement now:

• Candidate Self-Service: Empower candidates to self-serve with mobile-friendly registration and profile management, taking the busy work away from your recruiters.
• Candidate Engagement: Increase conversion of existing talent pool by re-engaging candidates in your ATS.
• Application Confirmation: Trigger application confirmation email (and text) messages to candidates who apply to your job postings.
• New Applicant Follow-Up: Start engaging with new applicants the second they apply, and don’t let good talent slip through the cracks.
• Data Hygiene: Update, maintain, and populate data in your CRM and ATS for top-notch data hygiene and usability.
• Update Candidate Resume: Gather and load updated candidate information (including resumes) directly into your ATS.
• Talent Onboarding: Talent can enter credentials, upload documentation, and complete the steps necessary to begin their jobs with an onboarding experience that sets your staffing firm apart.

Want to learn more about Connected Recruiting? We’re happy to connect and show you how you can keep your talent engaged.