I had an interesting conversation this week with a leading consultant in talent acquisition (I'll leave her nameless for now since I didn't get permission to use her name or company name). We were discussing CRM in recruiting in conjunction with a demo of Avature's Recruiting CRM. Interestingly, she feels that CRM is here and will be the leading initiative in TA for the next few years (like on-boarding was the previous two).

But what interested me the most about the conversation was the topic of linking revenue (or in this case lost revenue) to recruiting. If recruiting is to get out from behind the screen called the "back office" the missing link needs to be found. She was explaining that in two cases she worked on - GM and Starbucks - they were able to make the link. In the Starbucks example, almost all of their applicants are also customers and further, a poor experience in the application process could translate into a lost customer.

Run the numbers based on some firm data, some anecdotal data, and some assumptions and you end up with a dollar value on the lost revenue. Focus efforts around improving the applicant experience, better managing the relationship, better communication, etc. and, although you may still have lost customers (some people will always be angry that they didn't get the job and will leave as a customer), you have retained revenues for the company.
And that's where good CRM practice comes into play. A well communicated message at the right time to the right people (sound familiar marketers?) can go a long way towards making the difference.

I'll give a simplistic example to illustrate. Let's say there are 1,000 people that didn't get "the job" at Starbucks this year. In most cases, not necessarily at Starbucks, applicants never hear anything else beyond the letter or email rejecting them for the position (and that depends on where they get rejected in the process I guess but we're keeping this simple). Now what if they got that email/letter BUT as a follow up three weeks later they got another message that looked something like this (maybe Starbucks is doing this already, I don't know, but that's not the point)?:

Dear Applicant,

We just wanted to thank you again for considering employment with Starbucks and we're sorry again that we can't extend employment to you at this time. We sincerely hope your job search is going well and we wish you the best of luck. In a show of our appreciation for taking the time to speak with us we'd like to offer you a free cup of coffee at your next visit. Just print this email and take it with you to any Starbucks location and it will be honored.

Kindest regards,
The Starbucks Recruiting Team

With a good CRM system, that email cost you less than a penny (it's automated). Let's say that person spends $1/day at Starbucks. That's $360/year in revenue. If you save 25% of customers through this method (just an assumption), using the 1,000 rejected applicants example (I would assume it's far more than that at Starbucks), that's 250 customers retained at $360/year = $90,000 in retained revenue.

Now imagine if those same people get a Happy Holidays email from the Starbucks recruiting team? Or a "we're opening a new store" in your market email? Or a "rate your recruiting experience" email? Or a "do you know anyone that would like to work at Starbucks" message, refer them and get free coffee? And all of that information is stored centrally in a CRM? Gets interesting.

Your thoughts? I'd love to hear of other things people are doing like this.