CRM: The single sourcing tool every recruiter needs

5 mins, 15 secs read time

Personalized outreach is a source of pride on the Greenhouse Recruiting team. This means that sourcing involves extra research on prospective candidates. Sourcing takes time and work, but we believe this extra step of time and attention is one of the many ways we can enhance the Greenhouse candidate experience. By getting a solid understanding of prospective candidates’ background and skill sets, our recruiters can tailor their messaging to the specific person they’re contacting. One tool that’s really helped our team optimize their sourcing workflow and efficiency is the Greenhouse CRM (Candidate Relationship Management system).

Sourcing before CRM

Every recruiter has their own sourcing workflow, yet most choose to start with a simple search in a tool like LinkedIn Recruiter or Entelo, around a job title or a set of skills.

Once they’ve generated a list of search results, they’ll tab them out individually and look at them to see if their skill sets and roles align with the desired attributes for the particular role in question. After they've identified a handful of prospects, the time comes to strike up a conversation, adding in those personalized touches to show why they seem to be a great fit for the role—and for Greenhouse.

There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to sourcing: all the people a recruiter is reaching out to, all the roles that they’re trying to fill, and the different touch points of communication with each candidate.

If you’ve been responsible for sourcing at your organization, you already know that when you don’t have a dedicated tool to help you navigate the intricacies of sourcing you often rely on a spreadsheet, open tabs in your browser, or maybe just your own memory. It’s easy to see how none of these approaches are ideal: spreadsheets quickly become unwieldy, your browser can only hold so many open tabs, and your brain is human and therefore likely to be distracted or confused.

After CRM sourcing is simplified

The Greenhouse CRM tool helps to store all the information you might try to manage manually while sourcing. Gone are the days of keeping track of conversations with candidates in a spreadsheet, a browser, or your brain, because the CRM does all that for you.

Here are a few of the ways a CRM can transform your sourcing strategy:

1. Create a central “source of truth” for candidates

"A CRM is like a house of great candidates,” explains Cat Marcotte, a Senior Recruiter on the Greenhouse team. "It’s home to not only prospects we’ve sourced, but also candidates who have gone through our interview process and are already engaged with our brand. A CRM is a good place to hit first when a role goes live, before even doing sourcing on an external platform like LinkedIn."

Plus, a CRM can be a great source of truth in two areas: a) where to find your candidates and b) which stages they’re at with regards to communication and recruiting stage. You don’t have to worry about keeping track of when and how you’ve engaged with someone, because you have access to an activity feed that gives you all the information you need instantly.

2. Save time – and resources

A CRM can be a huge timesaver, removing the back-and-forth of managing spreadsheets and running other manual processes. It also boosts efficiency because you’ll have already vetted the prospects in your CRM, and in many cases they’ll already be familiar with your company so you’re not starting from scratch when you reach out to them.

Jacqui Maguire, Director of Talent Acquisition at Greenhouse explains, "Candidates who are engaged with the Greenhouse brand are more likely to move forward in our process, so starting with CRM candidates is an efficient use of time for the Recruiters.”

Ariana Moon, Recruiting Manager at Greenhouse, has successfully used the CRM to shave weeks off the hiring process.

The awesome thing about the CRM is that you can re-engage promising candidates and re-enter them into your interview process all before you interview any direct applicants. Revisiting warm leads in Greenhouse CRM is the first thing I do upon opening any role, because then you’re capitalizing on work you’ve done in the past to significantly cut down on the time you spend on a job search.
– Ariana Moon, Senior Recruiter

To read more stories from the field about how the Greenhouse Recruiting team has used the CRM to boost hiring efficiency, check out Re-Engaging Past Prospects & Candidates: CRM Success Stories Part 1.

3. Create customized talent pools

The Greenhouse Recruiting team uses the customized “talent pools” feature in Greenhouse CRM to easily manage different groups of prospects. You can customize talent pools so they’re organized by source (e.g. referrals or alumni) or by whichever defining characteristic you choose.

One of the most-used talent pools on the Greenhouse Recruiting team is ‘Promising Candidates.’ Senior Recruiter Katie DiCioccio explains: “We use this pool for candidates who applied to or interviewed with Greenhouse, did well in the process, but were not offered the job. We consider these types of candidates to be “silver medalists.” When we’re re-opening a role, I can go to the Promising Candidates pool, refine it using the Full Text Search functionality, and find qualified silver medalists or other standout candidates from previous searches.”

4. A CRM can be built right into your workflow

The Greenhouse CRM Chrome extension makes it easy to add prospects to Greenhouse CRM without disrupting your workflow. When you’re heads down sourcing, whether it’s in LinkedIn, Entelo, or on another platform, you can first use the Chrome extension to see if a prospect is already in Greenhouse (either as a prospect in the CRM or a candidate in the ATS) and what engagement they’ve had. If they’re not, you can add them to one of the talent pools in your CRM. You also have the ability to organize what stage they’re in and where the initial point of contact took place.

Using a CRM has completely transformed the way our own team sources candidates for open roles. They no longer have to keep track of countless details or spend time wrangling unruly spreadsheets. Instead, they get to focus on what matters most—learning more about candidates and building meaningful connections with them.

Interested in finding out how a CRM can transform your sourcing strategy? Let’s talk.

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