7 smart ways to keep your agency relevant as technology leads the market

If you dislike change, irrelevance is going to be worse!

The long shadow of Covid and the rising costs of items essential for everyday life continues to create an economic drag for some. Despite this, it seems many recruitment businesses in developed economies around the world are thriving. Generally, the market is buoyant as growing businesses hunt for people with the right skills and experience.

Increasingly, high skills jobs such as in tech and medical sectors are becoming harder to recruit, with vacancies outstripping the number of suitable candidates available to meet the demand.

People have a tendency to dislike and be resistant to change. However, as technology continues to shape the world, it is important for workers in every industry to understand how to add value and remain relevant. It is a priority to offset the risk of becoming irrelevant and replaced by technology. And recruiters are no exception!

RecTech is one of the leading areas for innovation and development. It follows that agencies and individual recruiters should do their utmost to make sure their service offers and skills position them to remain an integral part of the process of recruitment.

7 smart ways to keep your agency relevant as technology becomes more powerful

As technology becomes more powerful, recruitment and staffing agencies need to adapt their business models in order to stay relevant. Here are some ways that agencies can do this:

1. Master technology – leave no stone unturned in the quest for advantage. Use automated RecTech cloud apps to do the heavy lifting of manual and/or paper based processes, including timesheets, compliant documentation management, job advertising, CV sifting and interviewing. AI is becoming increasingly powerful. Horizon scan to stay on top of what’s coming and how it might impact your business and the industry.

2. Exploit data – this is kind of obvious because it goes hand in hand with mastering technology, but it’s important to be explicit so that there is no misunderstanding. In a world that is being shaped by technology, it should be of little surprise that the world is defined by data. Collect, analyse and make data-driven decisions about key recruitment activities, such as evaluating candidates, identifying trends and understanding recruiter performance.

3. Focus on the human element – it is important to focus on the human element of recruitment. This means engaging with candidates and clients, understanding their needs, and providing them with a personalised experience.

4. Deliver personalised experiences – use technology to personalise the recruitment experience for both candidates and clients. This means using data to understand the needs of each individual and deliver a tailored experience.

5. Invest in people to drive CPD – recruitment business leaders should consider investing in training to enable continuing professional development (CPD). When all other factors are equal, such as access to technology tools and their effective use, the key characteristic that differentiates one agency from another is the quality of the recruiters and supporting team.

6. Execute a strategy of building relationships – whether it is with clients, partners or candidates, agencies should focus on building strong relationships. Quite simply, trust builds loyalty. Loyalty equates to greater lifetime value from clients, closer cooperation with partners, and deeper engagement with candidates.

7. Keep innovating – the quest for efficiency in business is ceaseless. Successful businesses often apply the same rudiment to innovation. Quality management plays a huge part. Essentially agencies need to constantly look for new ways to improve recruitment processes and deliver a better experience for their clients and candidates.

Optimise your agency back office to maximise efficiency with ETZ

ETZ’s leading timesheet and invoicing solution, streamlines the back office processing of your recruitment agency. Our complementary solutions, ETZ Comply for onboarding and document management, and Caspian for business intelligence give agencies further capability to streamline and uncover opportunities. To find out more call us on 0800 311 2266 or book a demo.