What is candidate relationship management?

Candidate relationship management is a proactive approach to building talent pipelines. Instead of starting from scratch every time a new role is opened, candidate relationship management relies on engaging a network of talent in anticipation of future business needs.

While it’s possible to do candidate relationship management manually, most recruiting teams prefer to use a dedicated candidate relationship management tool (CRM). This is a type of recruiting technology that helps recruiters reach out to former and passive candidates in organized, measurable ways. In contrast to an applicant tracking system (ATS), which manages active candidates for open jobs, a CRM captures any sort of engagement someone has had with your employer brand – ever.

Why invest in a candidate relationship management tool? Without a dedicated tool, your talent team risks missing out on an entire ecosystem of talent. All the great applicants in your pipeline who don’t get hired will be lost after the role is filled.

If you’re trying to keep track of these candidates manually (such as in a spreadsheet, a browser or your brain), there’s a good chance that many of them will fall through the cracks and you won’t be able to follow up with them at the right time. But when you have a CRM, the candidate journey becomes cyclical so you’re constantly building your talent community over time.

Your CRM becomes a central “source of truth” that stores prospects you’ve sourced, candidates who have gone through your interview process and people who have already engaged with your brand in some way. This means that you’ll never have to start a role from scratch again.

The importance of candidate relationship management

There are several reasons why candidate relationship management should be a critical part of your talent acquisition strategy.

• Improve recruiting efficiency

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. Ariana Moon, VP, Talent Planning & Acquisition at Greenhouse wrote, “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.”

• Enhance candidate experience

Because a CRM tracks the history of your communication with prospective candidates, it creates a seamless, personalized experience for each prospect. You don’t have to worry about reaching out to the same candidate as one of your peers from the talent team or repeatedly sending introductory messages to the same person. Plus, you can reference past conversations and build your relationship over time. Candidates will appreciate the continuity and respect for their time.

• Contribute to a positive employer brand

Whenever you encounter promising candidates who aren’t quite the right fit for open roles today, you can make a note of it in your CRM and follow up with them in the future when a better opportunity arises. This follow-through helps create a positive impression of your employer brand. For example, when former Greenhouse senior recruiter Katie DiCioccio reached out to a silver medalist candidate to inform him when a role reopened, he said, “Wow, I can’t believe you actually stuck to your word. Most companies say that and don’t really mean it.” Building relationships with prospects and candidates can also have a wider ripple effect on your talent brand, since people are likely to share these positive experiences with their networks.

Learn more about the importance and benefits of a CRM in this blog post.

The candidate relationship management process

Let’s say you’ve decided candidate relationship management is going to be a key part of your talent acquisition strategy and you’ve decided to invest in a CRM tool. How do you set yourself and your team up for success? Here are a few of the key steps you’ll need to go through.

Step 1: Create talent pools

A talent pool (also often called a talent community) is a network of prospective employees identified as promising candidates to be nurtured for existing or future jobs. Who should go into your talent pools? Former candidates, passive candidates you’ve reached out to in the past, promising candidates who have expressed interest in your company, students who have attended your college recruiting events and alumni from your company are all worth considering.

Step 2: Organize your candidates

Make sure you have a CRM that can help you easily classify and nurture the talent in your database. Just remember that the data you have in your CRM is only as helpful as you make it, so be as detailed as you can when organizing candidate profiles.

Here are some ideas:

• Create a separate pool for the most promising candidates. This will make it easier for you to find the candidates you want to re-engage with in the future.
• Create specific stages within that pool. These stages may include “application review,” “mid-stage” or “later stage.” Classifying in this way will help your team organize your candidates based on which stage of the interview process they were last in. Also, make sure that candidates in every stage are assigned a prospect owner.
• Ensure that the last communication to each candidate is logged into the CRM. This will make it easier for your team to personalize outreach in the future.

Step 3: Nurture candidate relationships

Continue to nurture relationships with prospective candidates over time. While you’ll always want to reach out when relevant jobs open up, you don’t need to limit your communication to sharing job posts. You can also send them periodic messages to check in and see what’s going on in their personal and professional life or send them email newsletters, company updates and any other relevant content.

Step 4: Track and analyze CRM data

One of the big advantages to using a CRM tool is that you can get access to data you wouldn’t have otherwise. Make sure you track and analyze data so you can gain insights into candidate behavior, preferences and engagement levels. The insights you gain from this analysis can help inform your future recruiting and outreach strategies.

Step 5: Continue to refine and personalize your outreach

As you learn more about prospects over time, you can record relevant details so you can personalize future correspondence and build stronger relationships. You may also be able to tailor your messages so they’re more aligned with candidates’ specific interests. For example, if a candidate has experience with a particular technology, you might want to reach out to let them know about relevant new product releases or projects your engineering team is working on.

Best practices for successful candidate relationship management

Once you’ve got your CRM tool up and running, you can continue to refine your approach to candidate relationship management over time. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Create a candidate-centric approach

It may sound obvious, but remember that candidate relationship management should revolve around your candidates. Like any good marketing campaign, your outreach should speak directly to your candidates and help them solve a problem or improve their life in some way. Continue to think about how you can prioritize their needs and preferences, understand their motivations and career goals and personalize communication during every step of the hiring process.

• Leverage automation and AI for efficient CRM

As we’ve just mentioned, personalization is paramount. This means that you’ll need to be as efficient as you can to free up time to craft those customized messages. Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) tools can help you automate repetitive tasks, save time while drafting campaigns or communications and gather valuable data for analysis. Learn more about how Greenhouse Sourcing Automation features allow recruiters to build compelling and personalized outreach at scale.

• Measure and track CRM success metrics

How will you know if your candidate relationship management efforts are successful? You’ll need to select a few key performance indicators (KPI) that you can measure and track over time. These could include things like candidate engagement rates, time-to-hire and candidate satisfaction scores. You may also want to collect anecdotes and quotes that you can share to help bring the numbers to life.

Choosing the right candidate relationship management solution

When you’re ready to invest in a candidate relationship management tool, how should you evaluate the different solutions on the market and make your decision? Here are a few factors to consider:

• Key functionality

What are the non-negotiable functions and features you’ll need from this tool? Or, put another way, what are you hoping to achieve by investing in a CRM? Spend time discussing this with members of your recruiting team and any other key stakeholders. Your goals may include things like saving time, boosting efficiency and enhancing the candidate experience, which might be addressed through features like candidate tracking, email automation, interview scheduling and analytics.

• Scalability and flexibility

As your organization grows, you’ll need a solution that can accommodate your needs. Look for a CRM that allows you to customize workflows, fields and reporting to match your requirements today as well as changes you anticipate in the future.

• User-friendliness

Your CRM will only be valuable if members of your recruiting team feel comfortable using it. Consider how intuitive the solution is – can recruiters jump right in and start using it or will it require extra training to get them up to speed? Is there a mobile app (and is that something your team would use)? Whenever possible, involve a cross-functional team (think members from recruiting, IT and any other relevant departments) in tests and demos so they can share their preferences and raise potential issues.

• Integration with your existing HR systems

The promise of a CRM is to streamline processes and reduce manual data entry, so it’s essential to choose a CRM that integrates with your existing HR systems like your applicant tracking system (ATS) or human resources information system (HRIS). These integrations can ensure your data is accurate and consistent everywhere.