CRM for Staffing Firms: Is Yours Serving Clients, Candidates, or Both?

In a recent episode of SmartBug on Tap, host Alexandra Whitmore, the VP of Sales at SmartBug Media, spoke with Sandy Moore, the company’s Senior Director of Account Strategy, to discuss a common challenge for staffing firms: a customer relationship management (CRM) system that is not fully supporting business growth.

The episode explains what staffing firms often misunderstand about their CRM strategy, from disorganized data and low user adoption to disconnected handoffs between sales and recruiting. Together, Whitmore and Moore detail how a more adaptable CRM like HubSpot can provide a better solution for firms looking to improve their operations. Moore, who has experience helping clients streamline their systems, shared her professional insights on how to align sales, marketing, and recruiting within one centralized system.

Table of Contents

• Why the Double Funnel Creates Double the Trouble
• One CRM, Two Journeys: How to Make It Work
• From Headache to Harmony: Quick Wins and Smart Shifts
  
  
  

In the staffing industry, firms deal with two distinct groups of people: clients (companies with hiring needs) and candidates (individuals seeking employment). This creates what is known as a “double funnel.” While both groups are essential to the business, their journeys are completely different. Most CRMs are not built to handle this complexity, which leads to significant operational friction.

According to Moore, trying to manage both sides in a single system often leads to missteps that can hinder an entire business:

• Teams step on each other's processes. Sales and recruiting teams may unintentionally interfere with one another's work.
• Candidates are treated like customers. This blurs the lines between the two very different relationships and can lead to a poor experience for job seekers.
• Workflows and metrics become disorganized. Generic workflows fail to address the unique needs of each team. Metrics that are crucial for recruiters—like time-to-fill—can get lost in sales-focused dashboards.

Many traditional or legacy CRMs force a choice: they are built to support either sales or recruiting, but rarely both. To make them work for a double-funnel model, firms often have to resort to expensive workarounds and third-party add-ons.

This is where a flexible CRM can help. Unlike legacy systems, a platform like HubSpot is designed to support complex, multi-pipeline operations. Its architecture allows for:

• Custom objects, which enable firms to create unique data models for both clients and candidates.
• Custom pipelines, so each journey has its own defined stages.
• Segmented reporting and automation, ensuring that both sales and recruiting processes run smoothly in parallel.

One CRM, Two Journeys: How to Make It Work

With a more adaptable CRM, staffing firms can build a system that supports both client acquisition and candidate placement in a parallel and connected way. This requires a thoughtful approach to designing your processes and workflows.

1. Create Separate Pipelines

Establish a dedicated pipeline for client acquisition that tracks prospects from lead to partner. At the same time, create a separate pipeline to manage the candidate lifecycle, from initial sourcing to placement. While they are separate, it is important to maintain visibility between them so that teams can see progress and status across both sides of the business.

2. Standardize Your Criteria

To keep funnels clean and collaborative, use clearly defined stages for both clients and candidates. For example:

• For clients, stages might include “Client Discovery” or “Qualified Need.”
• For candidates, stages might be “Candidate Engaged” or “Interviewing.”

3. Set Clear Rules

Within the same system, it’s crucial to avoid any miscommunication. Moore recommends the following:

• Establish ownership rules: Assign clear ownership to each record. For example, a recruiter manages candidate records while a salesperson manages client records. Both can still add notes or tag colleagues to collaborate.
• Use permissions: Control who can see or edit specific information and records. This prevents accidental changes or duplicate outreach from different teams.
• Automate handoffs: Trigger automatic notifications when a new client need matches a candidate's profile. This ensures a seamless handoff between recruiting and sales without additional effort.

4. Customize Your Dashboards

Give each team a dashboard that shows their most important metrics. Recruiters might need to see information about open jobs and candidate availability, while sales can focus on revenue projections. This ensures that every team member has access to the information they need to succeed.

From Headache to Harmony: Quick Wins and Smart Shifts

When a CRM feels more like a data warehouse than a growth engine, it’s time for a reset. Starting with a few key steps can make a significant difference:

A Quick Win

Moore suggests that a staffing leader's first step should be to audit their current CRM and processes. This will help you identify what is working and where the gaps are. A third-party audit from an agency can provide an unbiased perspective.

A Long-Term Shift

To prevent long-term burnout, Moore says that firms must work from one source of truth. When everyone is aligned and uses the same system, they stop duplicating efforts and start collaborating, which makes the entire process more efficient.

This is where an agency like SmartBug Media can help. Our team specializes in optimizing HubSpot for staffing firms and can assist with:

• Building custom pipelines for both candidates and clients
• Integrating an existing ATS so you do not have to replace it
• Automating handoffs, alerts, and nurture workflows
• Enabling clean reporting for leadership and team-level visibility

If your CRM feels like it is holding you back, it might be time for a change. You can get started by scheduling a CRM audit.