10 Ways HubSpot for Recruitment Agencies Helps Pool Top Candidates

The job market underwent a paradigm shift as industries emerged from the coronavirus pandemic. Applicants now have the upper hand, taking control of the entire recruitment process. The role reversal compels recruitment agencies to be more aggressive with their strategy, and HubSpot emerges as their most potent ally.

HubSpot allows recruitment agencies to meet candidates and competition where it matters: Online and digital. The platform helps firms stay afloat amid internet noise which otherwise drowns a brand with a weak online presence.  

A digital presence is imperative today. For one, among the many things we learned from the pandemic about the job market is that people can effectively work online. The majority of workers found working remotely to be more mentally friendly and economical. 

One impact of such realization is that jobseekers also become less interested in the application process that requires submitting countless copies of their paper resumes. Even too many in-person interviews now render them disinterested. 

Candidates now research companies and apply for jobs online and, as a result, become highly selective. This new behavior contributed to an imbalance in the labor market where there are currently more job openings than the available people actively seeking employment.    

April numbers from The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics showed that there were 11.5 million jobs open but only 5.9 million to fill. The more recent July numbers revealed that there were 528,000 jobs added, but labor participation remains low.

Recruitment agencies face the toughest talent competition with more jobs to fill and fewer candidates to pool. The time has now come for recruitment professionals to treat recruitment like an inbound marketing campaign in which HubSpot is an expert.

How HubSpot for recruitment agencies builds relationships with top talents

By treating recruitment like an inbound marketing campaign, recruitment agencies can connect with passive applicants, enrich relationships, and delight candidates throughout the application process. And even if agencies come after shorter job closing rates, HubSpot ensures they only present clients with quality candidates. Here are the 15 ways recruitment agencies can leverage HubSpot for an innovative and satisfying application process:

1. HubSpot’s flywheel method places good candidate experience at the center of your application process. 

Let’s define terms first.

What is candidate experience, and why is it important?

Candidate experience is the jobseekers’ feelings after undergoing an entire application process. We can say that the term entails the consequences of a recruiter's application handling.

Were the recruiters polite to the applicants when scheduling initial to final interviews? Do they respect the applicant's time by responding aptly to their queries? Or do they treat them as just another number to a daily interview quota?

Candidate experience matters because it is the deciding factor with the most gravity. It offers a preview of how it is to work for a company, and how recruiters treat applicants impacts whether they will accept the job offer.  

Here's the thing about candidate experience: It's significant to those who don't accept your offer and crucial to those you have to turn down.

Ponder on these results from a 2019 study on candidate experience:

• 69.4% of applicants interviewed for the study said they are very likely to post about their negative candidate experiences across social media.
• 68.5% are unlikely to apply again to a company that gave them negative candidate experience.
• 82.4% will share their positive candidate experience with their friends and families.

As a recruitment agency, the responsibility to foster positive experiences lands on your back. One mishap and candidates will pass around negative reviews of your clients. Also, it will be harder and harder for you to fill vacancies. And, when you lessen re-applicants, it will be difficult for the entire recruitment agency to keep a rich pool of clients. 

Since you're not simply tasked to uphold your agency's reputation but, most importantly, your clients, as a recruiter, you need to ensure your fostering only good candidate experience. This point is where the HubSpot flywheel comes in.

What is the HubSpot flywheel?

You're at the helm of each touch point within the application process as recruiters. Not only are you tasked with piling the talent pool for clients, but you're also tasked to ensure that they maximize recruitment spending.  

By touch points, that would mean job ads on websites, emailing candidates, and reaching out through channels they prefer. Touchpoints also cover interviews and onboarding. HubSpot for recruitment agencies covers all these bases.

At the core of the HubSpot platform is a successful concept the company developed: the flywheel method.

HubSpot defines the method as follows:

“The Flywheel is a model adapted by HubSpot to explain the momentum you gain when you align your entire organization around delivering a remarkable customer experience. It [flywheel] is remarkable at storing and releasing energy — and it turns out that’s pretty important when thinking about your business strategy.”

You must have learned about a marketing funnel. For HubSpot, it’s a flywheel. If you put all positive energy into customer experience, it will keep the flywheel spinning. You’ll have an endless loop of attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. 

For recruitment agencies, using the HubSpot flywheel means aligning your campaigns with the candidate experience at the center. The positive experience you will feed into relationships between you and candidates will spin the flywheel. 

With HubSpot flywheel and candidate experience in tandem, you’ll generate more leads, enrich your client’s talent pool and grow your business amid tough competition.

2. Building a brilliant contact management strategy through HubSpot CRM.

The lifeblood of recruitment agencies is building relationships with candidates. A daily workload consists of contacting and speaking with many clients and candidates.

For an efficient workflow, recruiters need a straightforward platform to collect all communications. A contact management system will keep records of candidate and client contact information organized however you prefer.

HubSpot CRM has a customizable and automated contact management software that allows recruitment agencies to integrate and organize contacts based on positions or client requirements.

Now, the benefits of contact management software do not stop with simply having the capacity to organize contact information. The whole system is a powerful strategy that recruitment agencies can leverage deeper.

With HubSpot CRM, recruitment agencies can have a brilliant contact management strategy where they can utilize the power of data. By tracking data that includes calls, tasks, job orders, and correspondence, you have measurable elements your agency can use for decision-making.

A contact management strategy also gives you a running history of every communication at each touch point. A 360-degree view of communication histories helps recruiters nurture client and candidate relationships. It also allows you to anticipate what could happen to other possible candidates if the communication reaches a similar point to past interviews you had.

With a brilliant contact management strategy via HubSpot for recruitment agencies, you can better align your recruitment process with your equally essential sales goals. You have a basis of where to perform more. Or, to make it specific, you have a base of what kind of candidates to recruit more and what touchpoint your recruitment agency is struggling with.            

3. Perform passive hiring through HubSpot social media management software.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in the careers of recruitment professionals is the role reversal that took place post-pandemic. Today, recruiters run after candidates, hence the emergence of passive hiring.

Passive hiring is when recruitment agencies actively look for prospective candidates who aren’t applying directly to them. These candidates may not even be looking for jobs and are currently employed in other companies.

One effective platform for passive hiring is social media. With almost everyone keeping a social media profile today, it is easier for recruiters to scout for top talents to recommend to clients. 

Check out these numbers from a LinkedIn July 2022 compilation:

• The global workforce comprises 70% passive applicants, while there are only 30% actively looking for jobs.
• Millennials make up the more significant chunk of jobseekers today, with 73%, between the ages of 18 and 34, finding their current positions through social media.
• In its entirety, 86% of job seekers leverage the power of social media to find their ideal jobs.

Going after candidates instead of waiting for applicants greatly benefits recruitment agencies. For one, recruiters can instantly spot quality prospects. They can also select the best possible person for the roles they are filling.

You can fully use the immense power that social media holds through HubSpot for recruitment agencies’ social media management tools. After skimming through platforms, you can store publicly available profiles in your system.

You can set up keyword monitoring, then. Each time these prospects mention keywords or relevant phrases in their social accounts, you can create automated notifications for the next available recruiter to pick up immediately.

For example, a prospect in your database mentioned “looking for a job.” That single mention can trigger an automated email response from your system. Or, that single mention can trigger an alert for your recruiter to see the public profile and assess whether a job your team is filling is compatible. With these trigger alert messages, recruiters have a deeper grasp of what the prospect is looking for.

Another use of HubSpot social media management tool for recruitment activities is through content. The platform lets you directly publish related blogs across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

You can also set up notifications anytime someone comments, reacts, and shares these blogs. HubSpot for recruitment agencies may suggest the best times to post blogs for successful audience capture.

With the HubSpot social media management software, you will never miss an opportunity to run after passive candidates. You can connect all data into one CRM, from the triggered notifications to contact points. 

With all the data at your fingertips, you’re moving steps ahead of other recruiters. You can act fast and rally those top talents for your clients. 

4. Maintain a rich pipeline of qualified talents through HubSpot Deals software.

The HubSpot Deals tool is a ticketing system for tracking sales cycles or “deals.” Companies use this tool to analyze how they can improve revenue generation. And, if there are cracks in the process, they have a better view of which step of the sales cycle causes the problem.

Most of the issues that come up are failing to take specific actions once a notification occurs. Usually, sales reps miss booking meetings and cannot respond promptly to customer queries; or overlook a high-potential lead who just filled out a lead generation form.

All similar problems can happen within a recruitment process. Instead of a sales cycle, recruitment agencies use HubSpot Deals software for candidate cycles. The software ensures no opportunity passes when an interested candidate responds to different automated triggers. 

Think about this: The top candidates are off the market in 10 days in this red-hot job market. With HubSpot Deals software, speed is your competitive advantage.

Here's what a recruitment process looks like with HubSpot Deals:

• Recruiters create alerts for different jobs with all relevant keywords that can trigger a notification and signal that someone is interested. 
• Customize online application forms for these openings     
• Recruiters receive a notification when a prospect enters the radar for that job alert.
• They will review qualifications as seen on the application forms.
• After qualifying, they will then move the applicant to reviewed status.
• Part of the automated recruitment is an email sent to qualified candidates once they are moved to reviewed status.
• The email through HubSpot Meetings will have a generated link where the first and all succeeding interviews will take place.
• For all interviews that will take place, recruiters follow a candidate scoring system that determines who moves forward to the hiring and who needs to be turned down.
• For those who don't advance to the next level, recruiters can move them to a list of "unqualified," where an automated email gets sent to those they need to reject.
• The ones hired immediately received a custom quote template for the job offer.

With the HubSpot Deals, speed is your ultimate advantage. You move faster with the entire application process, providing job offers to top candidates in the shortest time possible. At the same time, you're sure you don't leave those who weren't hired trailing along.

5. Reduce time to hire with HubSpot email automation. 

As mentioned, the red-hot job market puts candidates in very high demand. Jobseekers are sending multiple applications and are receiving multiple offers at the same time. 

If it's taking you longer to give a job offer, the top talents are already gone in the market within ten days. Meanwhile, those you have yet to get back to with their unsuccessful applications may have been spreading bad things about your company in no time.

With HubSpot for recruitment agencies, hiring professionals can reach out to candidates at the right time, even those they have to turn down. The HubSpot CRM integrates seamlessly with Outlook and Gmail. With these HubSpot email integration options, you can skip the manual method of sourcing qualified candidates and cut the hiring time.

"Time to hire" is the number of days it takes for an applicant to complete your recruitment process. It starts with the candidate's first response to your job posting and ends when you make the job offer.

Reducing time-to-hire is pertinent for recruitment agencies to ace their toughest competition. With faster responses at each touch point within the recruitment process, candidates will equally respond to you faster. You'll become their priority over other companies they applied to because you're pushing them from one stage to another.

The time to hire is tricky. Check out these numbers, so you understand the challenge with one of the most important recruitment metrics:

• Across different industries, the average time to hire is 43 days.
• However, 62% of job seekers are no longer interested after two weeks from their initial interview with the recruiter.
• And even if recruiters satisfy the average time to hire, 49% of applicants reject a job offer if they think they have poor recruitment experience.

Those numbers indicate that if you don’t send an automatic email response when a candidate responds to your online forms, you will lose that candidate in 10 days. They may be receiving counter offers within those two weeks. At the same time, if you make the application process in haste, there is still a chance that a qualified talent may reject your offer. 

With HubSpot for recruitment agencies, you can set up meetings, links, and automated reminders to ensure that all processes go just as planned. You're in touch with the top candidate just in time without neglecting those you won't hire. 

6. Communicate your work culture and promote employee branding through the HubSpot content strategy tool.

Content marketing generates brand awareness, builds credibility and trust, and educates target audiences. The strategy is popularly associated with improving ROI, but if recruiters think like marketers, they'll discover that content is as significant for recruitment agencies as it is for B2B or B2C.

As mentioned, jobseekers' behavior has changed. According to Matt Charney, editor at Recruiting Daily, top talents are researching for a company the same way they would explore before purchase. Eighty-five percent of applicants use search engines when they do research.

At the same time, 69% of candidates read company websites thoroughly to get to know companies deeply. Another 61% read through online professional networks, and 47% scour social media accounts of prospective employers.

Jobseekers research not only to get information but also to get a feel of how it works with that company. If they don't like what they read, they might tick that organization off their list. This point is where content marketing for recruitment agencies plays a significant part. Companies lost potential candidates even from job postings alone, making it harder for recruiters like you to gather a talent pipeline.

If it's a product description or product review blog for products, it's employer brand content for companies. The same goes for recruitment agencies. 

Employer brand content is the summation of all materials published to promote a company's work employer branding online. As a recruitment agency, you also must take employer brand content critically as you represent clients in the eyes of the top candidates.  

Everything read and researched about recruitment agencies is associated with whether a company is an excellent place to work or something that should be avoided as a plague. Employer brand content sustains a reputation that influences candidates' decision whether to submit that application or not, whether to accept that job offer or reject it.

With employer brand content at the frontline of each recruitment process, you need a reliable platform for your content marketing campaigns: the HubSpot content strategy tool.

HubSpot built a content strategy tool centered around search engine optimization (SEO). The platform helps users discover traffic-generating topics that don’t undermine quality content. The HubSpot content strategy tool was designed to generate topics that build authority.

Employer brand content comprises your website landing pages, pillar pages, blogs, videos, infographics, white papers, case studies, podcasts, social media content, surveys, and so on. With HubSpot for recruitment agencies, you're in control of everything in one single platform.    

Here are a few more numbers highlighting the importance of content in sustaining your workplace culture and employee branding:

• A video can increase the application rate by 34%
• 37% of job seekers won’t even submit their applications if they can’t find sufficient information about a company online
• 58% of job seekers use their phones to research and apply for jobs
• A mobile-friendly job website can increase prospective applicants by 11.6%
• A whopping 92% will consider moving to a company with a good reputation
• Many job seekers will turn down job offers after reading unfavorable Glassdoor reviews

With the HubSpot content strategy tool, recruitment agencies can feed job seekers only the correct company information. You'll fill that pipeline with only the quality candidates you need by truthfully educating candidates about your clients. 

7. Master the art of time management with the HubSpot task management tool. 

Recruiters are talking to hundreds of prospects daily. That’s on top of speaking with clients and handling various virtual or in-person recruitment events.

Each prospect has a schedule. Different clients have different availability. Besides the mental load, stress and anxiety could pile up soon if everything you need to do clouds your mind.

The HubSpot task management software organizes every prospective list for you in one accessible platform. You can sync your calendar and work emails directly from HubSpot. 

Recruiters have a 360-degree view of everything that can happen within the application process. For instance, you can see whose prospects are opening the emails, scouring through web pages, and even those who are interacting with your social media posts.

You can do the interviews through the automated meeting links without leaving HubSpot.  

With a complete view of how the application process unfolds and goals achieved step-by-step, the HubSpot task management tool helps offload mental load. It serves as a to-do list of how to finish tasks organized, making recruiters feel accomplished daily.

With an organized list, recruiters can achieve efficient time management and sustain speed in follow-up calls with candidates. HubSpot for recruitment agencies helps ensure that no top candidates fall off the cracks and that quality talents remain interested up until that job offer.      

8. Streamline a data-driven recruitment process with HubSpot lead analytics.

Leads are the lifeblood of any business wanting to stand out in the digital sphere. HubSpot’s lead analytics tools allow users to collect and interpret data crucial to decision-making.

In recruitment, data interpretation allows recruiters to predict behavior and trends within the application process. Recruiters can analyze who among the applicants is showing the most interest. They qualify potential candidates promptly and can aptly move them from one stage to the next.

HubSpot for recruitment agencies is ready with default lifecycle stages. Recruiters can use these life cycles in determining what action they need next. Take a look at some of the default items here:

• Subscriber: applicants who want to know your client more through blogs and newsletter subscription
• Lead: applicants who filled out your online application form and submitted preliminary requirements you needed
• Opportunity: applicants who perhaps read through the websites and check out the social media pages of your clients 
• Evangelist: applicants who interacted with your client's social media posts, shared a job posting across channels
• Other: Applicants with minimal interactions with your clients’ digital properties

HubSpot lead analytics tool also comes with a lead status that recruiters can use for applicants that have furthered into the recruitment funnel. Here are samples of lead status:

• New 
• Open
• In progress
• Open deal (initial interview)
• Unqualified (need to be sent a rejection letter)
• Attempted to contact (no answer)
• Bad timing (unavailable, needs new interview schedule)
• Connected (to advance in the following interviews)
• Closed (job offers to be sent)

Those terms make streamlining recruitment efficient. However, more benefits to using the HubSpot lead analytics are tied to your overall revenue and business success. 

One, recruiters can benchmark new candidates by identifying which hard and soft skills worked in the past for the same job post based on past data. Recruiters can avoid biases and form a diverse client pipeline if they focus more on skills.

Two, from a business perspective, if you have all data on which channels are bringing quality leads, you can identify and prioritize campaigns around those platforms. This action helps you channel resources to the most generating campaign platforms.

Another important use of lead analytics is that recruitment agencies can set measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). With quantifiable KPIs, you know which of the recruitment process directly impacts your bottom line. Your quantifiable KPIs may include applicant-to-interview ratio, offer-to-acceptance ratio, and time and cost per hire.

You'll know what strategies work best for your recruitment with access to actionable insights. Analytics will help you identify a successful recruitment strategy that you can replicate with every hiring campaign you do for clients. 

9. Maximize biddable media spent with HubSpot for recruitment agencies.

Inbound marketing became popular because it utilizes free platforms for an equally successful campaign to that of more expensive traditional marketing channels (i.e., TV and radio commercials, print ads). Still, inbound marketing tools require minimal fees, such as biddable media. 

Biddable media is when a business buys advertising space through paid search (Google) or social media platforms. Compared to traditional marketing means, biddable digital media are still more affordable. 

Also, you only pay what you can afford. Hence, it is “biddable.” Advertisers (in this case, recruitment agencies) bid against each other in real time for specific ad space.

Think of biddable media as an auction. You bid against competitors for ad spaces on Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Try doing this: Try a Google search for the keyword phrase “jobseekers trends,” for example. Notice that the top three to four results have the label “ads” on them. You want those top spots so those prospects searching online can see you immediately. These spaces are what you’re going to bid for. 

You want those top spots so those prospects searching online can see you immediately. You'll only pay for each click your ads receive. This process is also called pay-per-click (PPC).

If you want a more targeted approach for your ad, then social media is the place you would like to make a bid. Video ads for social media follow audience segmentation in their algorithm. You can choose to show your video ads in specified regions or demographics. These ads come in a cost-per-view arrangement. You only pay for each time that a prospect watches your video ads.

With biddable media run through HubSpot, recruitment agencies can connect with the target audience and drive candidates to job postings on clients’ sites. Since you can be as targeted as you want with your biddable ads, there is a higher chance that only the most qualified candidates will reach out to you.

10. Uphold positive candidate experience consistently with the HubSpot Feedback Survey tool.

HubSpot Feedback Survey is designed to assess how satisfied a customer is with a product and service. It also measures a customer's overall feelings about a brand based on their experience.  

Companies use data generated from the Feedback Survey to improve customer service constantly. You can also use the tool to measure whether candidates are satisfied with your whole recruitment process experience.  

The recruitment agency has an in-depth view of what's working and what needs improvement. Instead of a customer service survey, recruiters can create candidate experience feedback surveys. This way, recruiters see firsthand what applicants are saying about their recruitment.

Pro tip: Candidate experience surveys are for everyone that underwent the recruitment process. With everyone, that means the ones hired and the ones who were turned down.

If you direct your candidate experience feedback survey to all applicants, you have a data-rich assessment that will help you assess the recruitment process efficiently. Note that, on average, a single job posting generates 250 applications. Only ten get shortlisted, and 1 or 2 receive job offers. 

Ensure that feedback surveys remain anonymous. And you must send it after the entire recruitment process to gather raw and honest reviews. 

The top candidates are objective thinkers. Their perception of you proves valuable for your organization.

Aside from internal feedback surveys, recruitment agencies should also be quick in scouring for third-party survey platforms like Glassdoor. Check out these numbers to understand how crucial feedbacks are for your agency:

• A 2017 Gallup State of the American Workplace Report found that employees view a company’s reputation as a “very important”factor when accepting a job offer. 
• 46% of Glassdoor members check the platform for company reviews before submitting applications or contacting recruiters.
• 86% of platform users check company reviews and ratings before deciding to apply for a job.
• Most of those looking for jobs read at least six reviews while making the decision.
• 55% of jobseekers who chanced upon a negative review of a company decided not to pursue their applications.

As you fine-tune your recruitment survey, you need to remember one more thing: Do it consistently, painstakingly, for each of your candidates. This way, you can always catch trends like changing candidate behavior.

Feedback Surveys through HubSpot for recruitment agencies work both ways. You see how candidates feel about you. From their end, they know that you value their opinions and care for them, even those who you have to turn down.      

Connect Only the Top Candidates to Your Clients Through HubSpot for Recruitment Agencies

Recruitment has been increasingly competitive today than it was years ago. Back then, jobseekers voluntarily submitted applications in troves, and recruiters filtered them out.

Today, job seekers have the upper hand. Amid the widespread talent shortage across industries, the tables have turned. Recruitment agencies are now after candidates.

The situation also shaped the industry differently. Recruitment now requires strategic digital marketing and sales tools conveniently in one platform.

With HubSpot for recruitment agencies, you pool in only the qualified talents on your side, clinching more lucrative clients along the process. You float amid the waves of applicants and fight through tough competition against other agencies.