Recruiters take on the tough role of being the middle person between candidates and companies. They often face a range of communication challenges, affecting their ability to effectively hire the right candidates. Whether it’s dealing with candidates who are difficult to reach, managing the expectations of hiring managers, or simply staying organised amidst a flurry of emails and phone calls. Recruiters need a reliable business communications system to ensure they stay on top of the game.
In this article, we’ll explore some common communications challenges faced by recruiters and provide actionable tips for navigating them with ease.
What are you using to communicate with candidates?
You’ll most likely answer with one of three options: your personal mobile phone, a company-issued phone, or a desk phone. Let’s explore why these aren’t ideal in the modern world of recruitment…
Common challenges with current recruitment communications systems
Using your personal phone
Many smaller to medium-sized recruitment businesses may opt for this option. It’s a lower-cost option, which is crucial for growing SMEs. However, using your personal phone comes with various challenges. The most prominent being, it blurs the lines between work and personal life. You might not be able to mentally switch off from work due to constantly seeing notifications on your phone after hours. Furthermore, it can get hard to stay organised. Due to your business contacts, personal contacts, calls, and texts not being logged separately.
If you are using your personal phone to contact clients and candidates, evaluate your answers to these questions:
Should you be handing out your personal number to people you don’t know?
Do you want to open up the opportunity for people to contact you out of hours for work?
Is it hard to keep on top of all the different candidates and clients and their conversations?
If the answer is yes to any of these, it’s time to consider a different option for your business communications!
Using a company-issued phone
The next and most widely used option for business communications is a second phone. Often companies will issue a second handset to employees for work purposes. While this combats some challenges attributed to using your personal phone like maintaining work-life balance, it presents more challenges. One of which is the need to carry with you two phones and two chargers. Plus needing to worry about making sure you bring both with you and keeping both of them charged!
Moreover, business owners will find that setting up contracts with mobile phone providers takes considerable time and is costly. Phone contracts are usually between 12-36 months [1]. Meaning should you need to scale your business down, you’ll be stuck in a contract. You’ll also be left with unused hardware that could affect your business finances. This is also not ideal for scaling up as you’ll continuously need to factor in extra time to set up phone contracts for a new hire.
To help you visualise the problem, ask yourself the following:
Do you find it frustrating to carry around additional phones and chargers?
Are you have trouble responding promptly as you may not always be on/near your work phone?
Do you find it difficult to manage your recruitment communications across devices?
A yes to any of these may be a sign to explore other options…
Using a desk phone
These are mostly reliant on physical landline technology. Which is slowly being switched off and out of operation by 2025. They offer limited functionality. For instance you can only receive one call at a time, leaving clients/candidates dialing in, having to call you back later. Furthermore, desk phones tie you to a specific location. This can be a hindrance to your recruitment business following the changing world of work post-covid. As there is very little location flexibility with the use of desk phones.
Additionally, the connection and call quality of this older technology cannot keep up with the competitive landscape of recruitment. Should you encounter any connectivity issues, the downtimes for your service could be detrimental to your hiring cycles.
If you’re still using a desk phone, consider these questions:
Do you wish to be able to make your calls on the go?
Do you wish to develop your business presence in new locations?
Is it difficult to stay connected with clients or candidates and communicate with them quickly and effectively?
Now you might be wondering, ‘How impactful can these challenges be to recruiting?’. We get it. These are the business communications methods we’ve been using for years. So it’s likely these challenges may not even seem like challenges. However, let’s take a deeper dive into how these problems affect your hiring process.
3 ways a poor business communications system affects your hiring cycle
1. Slow response times
Prompt responses are crucial in recruitment. In the competitive space, you have a small window of opportunity to land the perfect candidate for a client’s open role. During this time, communications with the candidate and client need to be effective and speedy. If your response is delayed by your poor business communications system i.e. missed calls or notifications, this could result in the candidate losing interest. Which opens you up to losing the candidate to a competitor.
2. Poor relationship management
A key skill that recruiters need to have is relationship management. Using a poor business communications system can affect a recruiter’s ability to build rapport with clients and candidates. Calls dropping, missing calls, and poor sound quality are all qualities that negatively affect the impression you leave. These all create delays and leave room for miscommunication. Which causes frustration and results in candidates and clients being less inclined to work with you.
3. Impaired productivity
Recruiters need to ensure they stay on top of each candidate’s progress through the hiring cycle. So they can deliver the correct guidance at the right time. You’ll usually do this using a CRM system however all progress and communications are manually recorded following any calls. This slows down the hiring process. Furthermore, there’s an increased risk of errors and inconsistencies in data management, which can lead to confusion and further delays.
What is the best type of business communication for recruiters?
They are delivered through an app that you can download on your existing mobile. This removes the need for a second handset or excessive hardware. You can call and text from a business phone number, on your current phone. Think along the lines of WhatsApp! Meaning all you’ll need to use a virtual business phone is a WiFi or data connection and your mobile phone.
Why choose virtual business phone systems?
There are many benefits of virtual business phone systems. However we believe these are the top 5 most important advanced calling features of a virtual business phone system to recruiters:
1. Call forwarding/routing
Virtual business phone systems allow recruiters to take advantage of advanced calling features. For example, call forwarding/routing is a feature that directs incoming calls to other available recruiters on the line, should you be unavailable. This is particularly useful as it prevents candidates or clients from having to wait and call you back, preventing delays.
2. CRM integration
You can integrate your CRM platform with a virtual business phone system. This allows for better data management as recruiters can automatically record call information, making it easier to manage candidate data and ensuring that others on the team have access to up-to-date information on each candidate’s status in the hiring process. Furthermore, this improves the efficiency of the recruiting process as it saves time and reduces errors by eliminating the need for manual data entry.
3. Call recordings
This feature allows recruiters to record and review calls with candidates or clients. This can be helpful for quality control purposes and can also be used for training purposes. It also allows for collaborative work as recruiters can use the recordings to consult with other hiring managers and determine the best course of action.
4. Call reporting & analytics
Virtual business phone systems provides access to valuable data and insights on call volume, call duration, and other metrics. This can help recruiters identify areas for improvement and optimise their communications strategy over time.
5. Listen to business voicemails
Any member of the recruitment team can promptly listen to any voicemails left by candidates or clients. This allows for the quick relaying of messages to each other, removing any delays in communication between recruiters and candidates/clients.
In addition to advanced features, virtual business phone systems improve your workflow. By eliminating the need for a second phone or a desk phone, virtual business phone systems provide these benefits:
- Location flexibility
Your business phone goes with you anywhere. As long as you have a stable WiFi or data connection, you’ll be able to work from anywhere when using a virtual business phone. This allows recruiters to work on the go and remotely.
- Work-life balance
Virtual business phone systems help to create a divide between your work and personal communications. This is particularly helpful to recruiters that use their personal numbers to contact candidates and clients as it allows recruiters to communicate with them with a different phone number. Texts will also be separated from your phone’s native inbox which eliminates any confusion that can occur.
Recruiters need to take advantage of advancing business communications technology in order to stay on top of the game in the competitive recruitment world. Virtual business phones are the modern business communications solution and if you haven’t already explored your options, let us introduce you to…
Devyce – the next generation business phone
Devyce Teams, is the solution designed for recruitment teams. With access to a teams management portal, you can view and manage your call data, voicemails, message history, call groups, call forwarding, and CRM integrations all in one place.
We provide all the features and benefits virtual business phone systems bring… plus a little extra 😉
Why choose Devyce?
There are 4 key reasons why Devyce is the right match for recruitment:
1. AI-powered technology
Devyce is one of the first virtual business phone providers in Europe to take advantage of AI technology, bringing you AI-powered call summarisation! Wouldn’t it be perfect if, after every call you make, a summary of the call is automatically generated and sent to you? That’s exactly what we provide. After every call, you’re sent a text message with a succinct and accurate summary of what was discussed in the call. This will save you time and streamline your communications as you won’t need to worry about noting any important details during a call.
2. Reliability
We’re a business phone system you can count on. No dropped calls, no missed calls, and clear, crisp call quality. Hear it from our customers…
3. No contracts. No hidden fees. No fuss.
The problem with many software providers is the long-term contracts which mean that if you are unhappy with the service, you’ll have to stick it out unless you want to pay a large exit fee. There may also be hidden or added costs with virtual phone system providers eg. if you need certain advanced features. We believe high-quality service and care is the bare minimum when you are paying for a service. This is why we won’t lock you into lengthy contracts and provide full transparency on our pricing. We’re confident our service is so good that you’ll want to stay. However should you want to leave, you’re welcome to at any time, at no additional costs.
4. Low cost, & quick support
Saving the best ‘til last… we have an exclusive deal with a registered UK Mobile Network Operator (MNO). This means that we can issue you business phone numbers at a much lower cost than our competitors can, which keeps your costs low. Additionally, if you are having any trouble with the number, with other providers it takes them time to resolve the issue as they need to contact the MNO that is providing them the phone numbers. This can sometimes take days. With Devyce, we can provide you with the support you need in under 24 hours due to our deal with an MNO.
Recruitment is a tough industry and in order to stay competitive in the field, you need a robust and reliable business phone system. Your current solution could be holding you back from making those all-important connections with candidates and clients and managing those relationships. With the right virtual business phone system, recruiters can take their communication to the next level.
Whether you’re a solo recruiter or part of a large agency, a virtual business phone system can help you stay on top the game and achieve your recruitment goals. So if you’re looking to stay ahead of the competition and take your recruitment efforts to the next level, it’s time to upgrade to Devyce.
