The minute-by-minute management and prioritization of a staffing firm’s job order pipeline is crucial to its financial success or Net New HeadCount. Job orders need to be ranked and prioritized constantly, this cannot be performed once a week, twice a week or even once a day. Priorities shift as each new job order is received and how responsive the staffing firms client point-of-contact is in providing updates related to the positions and candidates that have been presented (submitted) to them.
The job orders that are a distraction to the recruiting and sales team that clog up and distract from the job orders that need attention must be re-prioritized based on information as it is received. Not all staffing firm customers, hiring managers and their relationships are the same, neither are the job orders.
The on-going, in real-time re-prioritization and proactive management of the staffing firms recruiting cycles throughout each business day is imperative for efficient job order pipeline management that produces the highest anticipated financial results. The elimination of wasted recruiting cycles is key to the staffing firms’ ability to compete for talent.
Managing your recruiting pipeline is simple when approached through the utilization of existing data that resides in your database (ATS/CRM) and from using statistical outcomes from past experiences. All job orders must be prioritized so that the ones that are not productive due to a variety of factors do not drag down the recruiting team and their efforts that should be spent on revenue-generating job orders.
Your Staffing Firms Weighted Revenue and Forecasting Potential Outcomes Using the Job Order Pipeline
Evaluating the weighted revenue or value of each job order allows the staffing firms sales and recruiting leadership to have skin in the game by sharing the budget forecast for each client ROI (return-on-investment). Also, by having a shared P&L (profit and loss) statement based on their professional experience with a customer or a hiring manager removes any personal agenda or sales hyperbole. Mutually agreed to internal service level agreements (SLAs) for each job order through a pre-existing defined prioritization will streamline the recruiting operation. When it is clearly known what each job order is worth (monetary value) based on the bill & pay rate, spread, and length of the anticipated assignment these recruiting factors will point clearly to where recruiting cycles should be spent.
Know When to Re-prioritize, Put On Hold or Ignore Job Orders
All job orders and customers are not created equal. The staffing agency needs to know when a bad customer exists from a sales perspective, as it is not going to improve when a bad job order is assigned to the recruiting team. You cant expect to close and place someone in all open jobs received and you need to know when to pass and move onto the next one. Placing a job order On Hold or ignoring the ones that are not a good use of recruiting cycles is only good, objective time management. Having rigorous, standardized and published internal rules of engagement for how recruiting will manage and prioritize all open job orders is not just an option, but a necessity. Through the prioritization of your customers, hiring managers, and job orders you will have a systematic and transparent process for your entire organization.
Understanding the Job Order Lifecycle and Candidate Submittal Phases
Every job order has a status associated with where it is in the sales and recruiting lifecycle, as well as what phase the candidates are at in the submission process. When this information is not actively updated and documented in the ATS it is impossible for recruiting to know where they need to focus their attention. The internal and external candidate submittal process and ATS workflow should mirror what is performed or expected to be performed by the responsible respective parties involved.
Knowing the number of open jobs and what they are is only a small part of what needs to be understood. Knowing whether a job order:
- Is open without submittals?
- When was it originally issued/released to the staffing firm and when did the first candidates get presented to the customer?
- Have any candidates been internally rejected by the sales team?
- Have any candidates been externally rejected by the client?
- Did your recruiting team submit its maximum authorized qualified candidates for consideration for the number of oppositions open with each job order?
Staffing firms operate daily in a highly-competitive environment where moments can be the difference in recruiting the best-qualified candidates or them working with your competitor. This is a fast-paced industry and requires that your staffing firm have an optimized and streamlined standardization of processes and Applicant Tracking System usage are key to your firm’s success or failure. It doesn’t require recruiting and staffing firms working harder, but smarter and more efficiently.
