Why each candidate is a customer of their own
Why the Recruiting pack keeps each candidate as their own customer rather than under a client, and what that means for requests, signatures and consent.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Recruitment businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
Most CRMs are built around companies. A business is the account, and the people you deal with are contacts filed underneath it. For selling to businesses that works well. For a recruitment agency, it quietly causes trouble, because the most important people in the agency's world, its candidates, do not belong to any client.
Picture what happens when a candidate is filed under the client interviewing them. The candidate does not get the role, and next month they are a strong fit for a different client, a competitor of the first. Their record still sits under the first client's name. Their documents were requested through that client's file. And if the candidate is currently employed by a third client, the agency's own records now link them to two companies they never asked to be connected with.
The Recruiting & staffing pack in Achekam's Industry CRM avoids that by design. This article explains how, and why it matters.
Three records: vacancies, candidates and placements
The pack keeps Vacancies, Candidates with their interviews, and Placements followed through the guarantee period. Each industry pack sets the words the screens use, its record types, pipelines, workflows, document requests, documents to sign and reminders, so a recruitment team sees its own vocabulary rather than generic accounts and deals.
A vacancy belongs to a client. A placement connects a candidate to a client's vacancy. The candidate, though, stands on their own.
Each candidate is a customer of their own
In the Recruiting pack, each candidate is a customer of their own and is never filed under a client. The relationship between the agency and the candidate is treated as a relationship in its own right, which is how good recruiters already think about it.
It also reflects how long that relationship can last. Clients come and go with their vacancies, while a good candidate may be placed by the same agency more than once over a career. Recording them as a customer in their own right recognises that the relationship is long-term and worth looking after for its own sake.
That has practical benefits:
- Candidates move between vacancies freely. A candidate rejected for one role can be put forward for another client's role without untangling their record from the first client.
- Employment and candidacy stay separate. A candidate who works for one of your clients is not filed under that client as a job-seeker, which matters a great deal if that client is also your customer.
- The candidate's history is in one place. Interviews, documents and placements across many vacancies sit on one record, rather than scattered across client files.
Requests and signatures reach the candidate directly
Because the candidate is a customer of their own, requests for documents and signatures reach the candidate directly. A workflow step can send the candidate a request for documents or a document to sign electronically, and the candidate's answer moves the task on.
During screening, for example, the pack requests the candidate's identity document, qualifications and consent. Those requests go to the candidate, not through the client, and what the candidate sends back is recorded against the candidate. The client does not need to be involved in gathering a candidate's personal documents, and should not be.
Keeping consent on the candidate's record
Consent is the heart of ethical recruitment. Candidates trust agencies with their CVs, their current salaries and sometimes the fact that they are looking at all. Using that information without their agreement can damage their career and the agency's reputation.
The pack builds consent into the process at two points:
- In screening, consent is one of the things requested from the candidate, alongside their identity document and qualifications.
- In the vacancy intake, the shortlist the client receives contains screened candidates who agreed to be put forward.
Because consent is requested from and recorded against the candidate's own record, it follows them across vacancies. Before putting a candidate forward to a new client, a consultant can check what the candidate has agreed to.
Data protection law in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya places duties on businesses that hold personal information. In South Africa, the Protection of Personal Information Act sets the conditions for lawfully processing personal information and regulates direct marketing. The pack helps you keep consent organised; it does not decide what your obligations are. Agree with your adviser what consent you need, how long you keep candidate records and how candidates can ask for their information to be corrected or removed.
What the client receives
The client deals with the vacancy: the brief, the job description, the terms of business and the shortlist. The candidates it sees are the ones you put forward with their agreement. The wider candidate pool, the candidates who were screened out and those who declined, remain your records, not the client's.
A short candidate-records policy
Agree these points in writing for your team:
- Every candidate is recorded as their own customer, never under a client.
- No CV goes to a client without the candidate's agreement for that client and that role.
- Personal documents are requested from the candidate directly.
- Consent is checked before every new submission, not assumed from an earlier one.
- Candidate records are reviewed regularly, and those you no longer need are dealt with under your retention policy.
The intake that produces a shortlist is covered in taking a vacancy brief and signed terms of business, and the screening steps in screening candidates with documents and consent.
Look at how your current system files candidates. If any sit under a client's name, that is the first thing to fix, whichever tool you use.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
