ATS and CRM

Your ATS and CRM is where your consultants spend their day, so it's the most important software decision an agency makes. Changing it is disruptive, so it pays to choose carefully and plan the move.

What to look for

• Fast for consultants. Logging calls, adding candidates, sending CVs and booking interviews should take a few clicks. Ask your best biller to try it.
• Built for your kind of recruitment. Permanent, contract, temporary and executive search each need different things, such as timesheets, rates, shortlists or retained fees.
• Reporting management trusts. Activity, pipeline, placements and fees, without exporting to spreadsheets.
• The right connections. Job boards, email and calendar, LinkedIn, phone systems, your website and back office. See which tools work with each system.
• Compliance built in. Consent tracking, data retention and right-to-work records help you meet UK GDPR.

Questions to ask before you sign

• Exactly what will you move from our current system, and how do we check it?
• How long does a typical move take, and who does the work?
• What's included in the price, and what costs extra (integrations, storage, extra modules)?
• What training do you give new starters, not just at launch?
• How do we get all our data out if we leave?

Watch out for

• Underestimating the move. Clean your data before you switch, not after.
• Customising everything on day one. Start close to the standard setup and change it once the team is using it.
• Contracts that start charging before you've gone live. Agree a go-live date in the contract.