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Hi there, this is Denise. I hope you and yours are well. This week’s post and podcast are about systems—specifically, why marketing systems are essential for recruitment businesses and how they can transform your day-to-day operations.
Many recruiters excel at having specific systems for working with candidates and managing placements. However, they’re not as strong in sales and marketing, particularly marketing. This is a significant gap that’s costing recruitment business owners dearly.
Based on our conversation last week about what’s happening in the market, we know that over 20% of people plan to quit their jobs in 2025. That’s nearly 1 in 4 people actively planning to leave. If you’re thinking, “That’s great, more candidates for me to place,” hold on a second. The challenge is that while all these people are planning to quit, approaching 90% of companies are still experiencing skills gaps in specific areas.
We have more people moving, but they’re not necessarily the right people for the roles that need filling. If you’re like most recruitment business owners I speak to, you’re caught in the middle of this chaos, fighting for both clients and candidates in this increasingly competitive market.
Why Most Recruitment Businesses Struggle With Marketing
Let me paint a picture for you. Names are changed, of course, but these are real scenarios from clients and people in the market. Let me tell you about Sarah, who’s been running her recruitment company for eight years. She’s a great saleswoman with no problem getting on the tools. She has a good reputation and solid relationships.
Yet every month feels like Groundhog Day. She’s starting from scratch. One month, she has more clients than she can handle. The next, she’s scrambling to find work for her team. Then suddenly everything goes quiet, and there she is with no pipeline.
Does this sound familiar? Talking to Sarah always breaks my heart because I know people like her who are excellent recruiters. But she feels like she’s running on a hamster wheel, working 70-hour weeks and constantly stressed about where the next placement is coming from. She can’t get ahead of the curve because she’s sporadic in everything she does and has no system in place to leverage how good she is.
The Reactive Mode Problem
The first major problem is getting stuck in reactive mode. Business owners in the recruitment sector are very much like firefighters. Someone calls with an urgent role, and you drop everything. You get the terms signed and start searching. Or a candidate walks through the door, and you start scrambling to find them something.
You always respond to what’s happening instead of creating what should happen next. Again, Let me say that you’re responding to what’s happening right now rather than creating what you want.
It’s Sunday night, and you’re lying in bed thinking about the week ahead. Where will Monday morning’s placement come from? You need to follow up with various people, wondering which clients have new roles this week. You’re hoping the candidates you’ve been chasing will finally return your calls and stop ghosting you.
Your stomach’s in knots because your business success depends on things outside your control. This happens because you have no systems in place.
The Relationship Building Challenge
The second problem is not having a systematic approach to building relationships. In recruitment, relationships are everything. Yet it’s sad to see some companies in our space treat relationship building as something to do sometimes – more of a hobby or tick-box exercise rather than a honed business process.
Your network is your net worth, particularly as a recruiter. You can’t just call candidates randomly when you have a job. You can’t expect to ring them up and have a good relationship with them when you only call when you need them. They smell it a mile off.
Similarly, you can’t only reach out to clients when you want to sell them something. Clients know that too. But what do successful companies do? They have systems that nurture relationships constantly. Candidates hear from them regularly with valuable insights, not just job opportunities. Their clients receive market intelligence and industry trends, not just CVs when roles arise.
Let me share an example. We have a great client – let’s call him Simon. Last year, before he started working with us and put a marketing system in place, their average fee was around 15%. After 18 months of consistently doing content marketing and client nurturing, the average fee is 22% in a difficult market. They rarely get pushback on pricing because they’ve become the obvious choice, not just another option.
The Financial Cost Of No Systems
Last year, we worked with a company with about £500K in annual revenue—a really good business. But the numbers were alarming. They lost nearly half that in potential revenue yearly because they had no predictable pipeline.
They’d go a few weeks without a placement, panic, drop their fees, and try to close something quickly. Then they’d spend the next month working for margins so thin they barely covered costs. Meanwhile, the best candidates were being snapped up by competitors.
The financial cost was excessive because they had no systems in place. They had a couple of key clients, but when those clients pulled back on recruitment, huge gaps appeared. Because they’d relied on these individuals, they hadn’t built a pipeline with others. We all know pipelines take time to build, particularly in the current market.
The real cost isn’t just to the business—it’s to you personally. You’re working 70-hour weeks, missing family events and dinners, and cancelling holidays because you’re trapped in a reactive cycle. It’s like starting from scratch each time rather than having a system in place and giving it time to build.
What Are Marketing Systems And Why They Work
A system is simply a repeatable process that produces predictable results. It’s straightforward. In theory, anyone in the business can implement a system. You create a system, and people follow that process.
Next week, I’m going to discuss creating SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), which will make things much easier. Today, I worked with one of our team members, Logan, who helps with podcasting. I record the podcasts, and he edits them, creates images, and ensures they go out on social media and the blog. We have a whole systematic process around that, which I was teaching Logan this morning.
Logan is a great administrator but not a marketer. However, he’s following the system. Systems are about consistently doing the right thing at the right time. When marketing your recruitment company, systems will solve many problems we’ve discussed.
Content Marketing Systems That Position You As The Expert
Content marketing helps you stand out. Only this week, one of our newer clients shared content we’d provided him. It was going out in front of his clients, and suddenly he noticed one of them had posted a job. Even though he was on holiday, he sent a note saying, “Hey, I noticed you posted this job. I wonder if I could have a crack at it?” The client said yes.
You can see the difference this client got – he was on somebody’s radar because he was using content. Content systems position you as the expert in your sector or niche. When you consistently share insights about what’s happening in the market – salary benchmarks, hiring challenges, talent strategies – something powerful happens.
Clients start seeing you as a strategic partner, not just a supplier. And I know that’s so important for many of you. Again, clients start seeing you as a strategic partner, not just a supplier.
Email Systems That Keep You Top Of Mind
Email nurture systems work brilliantly here. They keep you top of mind with prospects who aren’t ready to hire yet. Most clients only need recruitment help occasionally. When they do need it, who do you think they call? The recruiter who’s been sending them valuable insights every month, or the one they haven’t heard from since their last placement?
We have a client, Karen, who sent me something a few weeks ago. She shared that one of her clients had said, “I like this content you’re sharing, Karen. I find it useful. Can we jump on a call? I want to talk to you about a couple of upcoming roles.” That’s the difference it makes.
Social Media Systems That Amplify Your Expertise
LinkedIn will have nearly a billion users by the end of this year. Less than 3-4% of people post regularly. Sharing content through your social media system will be an easy way to get in front of your market.
It amplifies your expertise across the platform where your clients spend time. LinkedIn isn’t just about candidate sourcing – it’s the most powerful client acquisition tool in recruiting, but only if you use it systematically.
Many recruiters do things wrong on LinkedIn: They only post when they remember to, share lots of other people’s content rather than creating their own, and reach out to people only when they want something.
Systematic LinkedIn use looks different. You post valuable content on a schedule (LinkedIn even has its scheduling tool). You engage meaningfully with people and start engaging with your clients’ posts. You share original insights that show your market knowledge. You build relationships before you need them.
Candidate Pipeline Systems That Create A Talent Magnet
Let’s talk about candidate pipeline systems. Many people tell us, “If I had five Amandas, I could place them ten times over. It’s just getting them.” The best companies have candidates calling them, not the other way around. They’ve built what I like to call the candidate magnet system – a system that attracts talent continuously.
Employer Branding That Attracts Candidates
You talk to your companies about needing a good employer brand. You need to have a good employer brand as well. You can showcase why candidates should work with you. This isn’t just about having a nice website. It’s about consistently demonstrating that you understand what’s happening for candidates.
You understand the highs and lows. You understand their career goals. You have access to great opportunities and genuinely care about their success rather than just ringing them up when they tick a couple of boxes for a particular role you’re trying to fill.
One of our clients started doing “day in the life” posts—short videos featuring candidates they’d successfully placed. These were quick iPhone videos showing new people settling into their roles. This created more candidate applications. You can even do it with an image in Canva.
Candidate Nurturing Systems That Build Trust
It’s important to have candidate nurturing systems as well. Most recruitment CRM platforms now enable you to send automated email campaigns to candidates, which is gold if you do it. When we talk with people about working with us, many already have a candidate database with so much untapped potential they don’t appreciate.
However, they’re not keeping that passive talent pool engaged until the right opportunity comes. That’s where they’re missing out. Most good candidates aren’t actively looking for jobs, but they will move for the right opportunity presented at the right time by someone they trust.
You build that trust because emails land in their inbox. Only the other day, I was looking for a company we used to work with. I asked Shannon where they were, and she said she still gets emails from them. I looked in the email system, and there was an email from a couple of weeks ago. Bang—we got the phone number, and there was business for that individual.
A systematic candidate nurturing approach means regular touchpoints that add value – market updates, career advice, top tips. You’re not constantly trying to place them. You’re helping them succeed wherever they are, which builds trust for when they’re ready to move.
How Systems Reduce Stress And Increase Efficiency
Here’s what I love about systems: they reduce stress. As small business owners, it’s easy to get stressed when things happen or you realise you’ve dropped another ball because you haven’t got something in place.
Systems change all this. When you have a documented process for content creation, client nurturing, and candidate management, you don’t have to implement everything yourself. We have whole spreadsheets, flow charts, and diagrams that people use.
We have a great client in the legal sector who’s just got a couple of new employees. One is helping her with marketing, and it’s been great because the systems are in place. I’ve seen the stress leave her body because she’s got somebody, she’s given the system to. This person is doing the paint-by-numbers approach, following the system.
You become the conductor of the orchestra, not the person having to play every instrument. There’s nothing wrong with playing an instrument, but you should do high-value activities – conducting what’s happening.
The Success Story: David’s Transformation
Let me tell you about David, a client from a few years ago. He was exactly where Sarah is now – inconsistent pipeline, working all hours, never quite sure where the next client would come from or how he’d fill roles.
Today, his business has grown by nearly 180%. He’s managed to shrink his working week to four days. He can predict revenue in advance. We encouraged him to create a spreadsheet and do a cash flow forecast, which made a difference, too. Because he has systems in place, things are very different for him.
Thanks
Denise
How We Can Help
If you’re tired of the hamster wheel and ready to build systems that work for your recruitment business, we can help. Through our Superfast Circle Program, we provide complete marketing systems for recruitment companies. This includes content marketing systems, email nurturing campaigns, social media strategies, and candidate pipeline systems—all designed specifically for recruitment businesses.
