What were top performing recruitment agencies doing in 2022?

While most staffing and recruitment agencies saw growth in 2022, certain practices were more likely to separate those who saw the highest gains in revenue from those who suffered revenue losses Agencies with the highest revenue gains were twice as likely to have digitised their data as those with the greatest revenue losses and nearly twice as likely to use automation heavily, according to Bullhorn’s Global Recruitment Insights and Data (GRID) 2023 Industry Trends Report

Most (84%) recruitment agencies in the APAC region have begun implementing a digital transformation strategy, ahead of the global average of 77%.

However, many are still in the early stages. Only 30% said they use self-service technologies such as chatbots to streamline operations and engage candidates, and only 16% heavily leverage automation throughout their business.

Acquiring new candidates remains the top priority

Perhaps given the severe impact of talent shortages, APAC recruitment agencies again cite acquiring new candidates (39%) as this year’s top priority. The second biggest priority is winning new clients (34%), followed closely by digital transformation (33%).

Despite feeling optimistic about their business growth prospects, APAC recruitment agencies continue to face client-related challenges. The most pressing is an increase in job requisitions that are too specialised or demanding (according to 23% of respondents), followed by a reduction in overall job requisitions (21%), and a lack of communication from clients (14%).

Engaging existing talent leads to higher revenue gains

For APAC recruitment agencies, candidate acquisition remains a challenge: 59% cite the talent shortage as a top challenge in 2023, compared to the global average of 56%.

However, agencies that followed certain best practices in engaging candidates were 30% or more likely to report revenue gains in 2022, according to the global survey results.

These best practices include engaging with passive candidates in the agency’s database, soliciting referrals from candidates, and using candidates’ preferred methods of communication, among others.

The two practices most correlated with success worldwide were redeploying candidates and database utilisation

The firms that lined up the highest proportion of workers for new roles before the end of their assignments and those that most frequently filled a position with a candidate already in their database were twice as likely to report revenue gains last year and 50% more likely to expect gains in 2023

However, fewer than 10% of firms use automation to redeploy candidates.