Mastering the Recruitment Pipeline: A 2024 Guide for Agencies

Improved efficiency, an elevated candidate experience, and superior candidate quality. 

These are just some of the benefits of establishing a well-structured recruitment pipeline. 

And with recruiters facing fierce competition in 2024’s challenging hiring landscape, leaders must harness powerful data tools to boost their pipelines and keep track of performance. 

Here’s everything you need to know about modern recruitment pipelines. 

Understanding the Recruitment Pipeline

What is a pipeline in recruiting?

Ultimately, a recruitment pipeline is an effective way to organise and visualise your hiring processes over time. 

Potential candidates enter your recruitment pipeline process at the top, and as they progress through the milestones towards hiring, most will be eliminated until finally a placement is made. 

An overview of your pipeline gives you a clear picture of exactly how your recruitment processes are faring at any one time. 

You should be able to see how many CVs have been sent for each job, for example, or how many first interviews have been booked. 

This translates into better pipeline management, rapid detection and resolution of any issues within your processes, early detection of key trends, and agility within your agency. 

Read on to find out how to create a recruiting pipeline fit for 2024.

The Anatomy of a Recruitment Pipeline

The purpose of recruitment pipelines is to help recruiters manage an efficient hiring process. 

It gives you the data breakdown you need to set goals and track progress towards these targets.

Your pipeline overview will also flag any issues with your recruitment processes so you can swiftly attend to them. 

Here, we will take you through the different stages of the recruitment pipeline to include in your recruiting pipeline template and explain what happens at each stage.

Stage 1: Jobs Added

Sitting at the beginning of the pipeline, the ‘Jobs Added’ stage is when a recruitment agency wins a new job to recruit for. 

This is where you kick off the recruitment process, delving into your talent pool, identifying potential applicants through sourcing channels, and collaborating on job descriptions and compensation packages. 

Looking at ‘jobs added’ in your recruitment pipeline reveals a few key things. 

First and foremost, it speaks to the health of your pipeline—a low number of jobs added suggests you need to make more BD calls and build relationships with potential customers. 

But sometimes, if this metric is low, it’s because businesses are struggling to stay afloat, are making cutbacks, or have low confidence in the market. 

Expect the number of jobs added to fluctuate seasonally.

For instance, December is traditionally a quiet time for new jobs coming to market as businesses wind down towards the end of the year. 

This makes it a great time to double down on client work to win more jobs. 

Furthermore, OneUp research revealed a very quiet Q1 for jobs added in 2023, but this trended up as the year progressed — suggesting an improved economic climate heading into 2024. 

Stage 2: CVs Sent

CVs sent is the number of CVs that have been sent for any open role. 

This is when you have sourced a candidate, vetted their CV, matched them to the open role, and then sent their CV to the client. 

In other words, you have been able to refer qualified candidates.

CVs sent is a good indication of the health of your talent pipeline. 

If your CVs sent rate is unusually low, it suggests you're struggling to find qualified candidates.

In this case, you should work on widening your talent pools or identifying new sources.

It could also indicate that the job description or compensation package simply isn’t attractive, at which point negotiations with the client are necessary. 

But a high rate of CVs sent is not necessarily good news either. 

It could mean that you're submitting less qualified candidates in a bid to fill a role quickly without considering quality or that you've got an incredibly picky client. 

Either way, CVs sent is an important stage of the hiring pipeline to keep an eye on as an abnormally high or low rate typically means you’re struggling to fill the role. 

Remember that the CVs sent metric also tends to drop off in December as jobseekers delay moving roles until the new year. 

A Q1 spike typically follows this as recruiters aim to capitalise on the busiest time of year. 

Stage 3: 1st Interviews

This is where you see the number of 1st interviews booked each month. 

Getting candidates through to the interview stage is always a positive sign for recruiters. 

Typically, it means you've sourced and vetted a highly qualified candidate whom the client is interested in meeting. 

They have often scored highly in assessments and undergone job simulations or even one-way video interviews. 

And at this point, the candidate is still interested in the role. 

Now, ensure your candidates are thoroughly prepared for the interview and that clients have all the information they need ahead of the big day.

Following the interview, you can contact the candidate and client to find out how they felt it went. 

It's essential to monitor the number of interviews booked vs placements filled.

If this is too high, it could indicate that you're not properly qualifying candidates or that you're overselling them to clients. 

In 2023, OneUp research showed that the first interviews metric was highest in Q1 before dropping significantly in April and remaining flat throughout the rest of the year.  

Stage 4: Placements Filled

Congratulations — you’ve made a placement! 

Your placement filled figure shows the number of placements completed in each month of the year. 

This is the desired result for any recruiter: all your hard work higher up the recruitment pipeline has paid off, and both client and candidate are leaving the process satisfied. 

Around this point of the funnel, recruiters are hit with a lot of admin, from contracts and personal details to deciding start days and assisting in salary negotiations. 

And then, of course, there’s the celebratory part — contacting the candidate to let them know they’ve bagged the role. 

The higher the number of placements filled, the better.

A low number suggests something is going wrong further up the funnel, and it's time to take a deep dive into the data to identify and rectify the problem. 

Again, it’s important to contextualise this figure against seasonal market fluctuations. 

Our data showed that in 2023, placements were at their lowest in January, coming off a slow December. 

However, this did pick up as Q1 played out and remained relatively consistent throughout the rest of the year. 

Remember — your placements filled figure does not take into account the level of revenue attached to each placement. 

Stage 5: Revenue

In the revenue stage of your pipeline, you see the total amount of revenue generated by your recruitment agency.

In many ways, this is the most critical stage of the pipeline. 

After all, the amount of revenue you’re bringing in is a good indication of the overall health of your recruitment agency. 

It tells you how your overall operation is performing — generally, if you’re seeing great figures for the four earlier stages of the recruitment pipeline, your revenue should look good too.

Let's face it: bringing in revenue is the ultimate reason most recruitment leaders get up in the morning. 

If you're not seeing the revenue results you want, it's time to travel back up the pipeline to detect any issues and investigate your working practices to discover where efficiencies could be made. 

Set your team revenue-based goals (and incentivise these targets) to drive results in this area. 

Optimising Your Recruitment Pipeline for 2024

Employing recruiting analytics software like OneUp facilitates a healthy and strong recruitment pipeline. 

In 2024, every recruitment agency should use accurate, relevant, and consistent data to inform its strategies and decisions.

Here’s how. 

Recruitment Pipeline Data

Recruitment analytics tools give you an overview of your recruitment pipeline, which is vital for staying competitive in 2024.

Look out for software that breaks your pipeline down into its different stages with clear visualisations that allow you to detect problems in real time. 

You need to be able to see, at a glance, the critical numbers in every stage of the pipeline so you can immediately investigate if something looks off. 

For example, say you're looking at an overview of your agency's recruitment pipeline and notice the number of CVs sent is sky-high, while first interviews are subdued.

You switch views to break this data down by client and identify the one client who is being sent a vast number of CVs but has yet to book any interviews. 

At the very least, you need to have a conversation with the recruiter or recruiters handling that client. 

Maybe their contact is on holiday this week, or asked for X number of CVs to be sent over before they made a decision. 

On the other hand, their client may believe none of the CVs sent over are good enough to warrant an interview.

In this case, you’d need to have a conversation with the client to re-investigate their brief, and discuss sourcing channels and qualification with the recruiters on that job. 

Recruiter Performance 

If your processes are running without any hitches, but you’re keen to optimise your recruiting pipeline strategy to bring in more revenue — take a look at recruiter performance. 

Without specific targets and incentives to work towards, recruiters can become directionless, uncompetitive and unmotivated. 

In this situation, recruitment leaders get frustrated because their business goals are not being met — but their recruiters are uncertain about what direction they should be pushing in. 

Using performance metrics, you can get your team to focus on the tasks and results that are most important to you.

All recruiters must be set SMART goals that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Next, harness the analytical power of OneUp to track these goals and democratise the data surrounding them. 

Set up custom dashboards for each recruiter that display their progress towards each goal in a clear and visual way. 

And remember to attach attractive incentives to these goals.

Now build these goals into your team meetings and one-to-ones, using the dashboards as reference points. 

When they finally hit their goals, celebrate! And then set some more. 

Recruitment Team Motivation

While setting goals is key to optimising your recruitment pipeline, it won’t make much of a difference unless your team is motivated to hit them. 

Data can be an incredible motivational tool. 

Why? 

It illustrates the hard facts of individual and team performance and shows recruiters exactly how well they are performing compared to their peers. 

And no-one likes to come last. 

With OneUp, you can ramp up healthy competition on your team through leagues and leaderboards. 

Announce a competition goal and incentive for your team, set up a leaderboard, and display it prominently in the office. Give a progress update at every team meeting, discuss performance in one-on-ones, and celebrate when the winner passes the finish line. 

You can use a similar technique to encourage teamwork and collaboration by implementing agency-wide goals or splitting your recruiters into teams.

Automation and AI Tools

Automation and AI tools supercharge your team, boosting the productivity, efficiency, and quality of your pipeline. 

In 2024, agencies simply can’t afford not to employ these innovations. 

From CV scanning and matching to scheduling interviews and compiling analytics reports, this tech takes care of those tedious and repetitive pipeline tasks that eat up your team’s time.

This frees recruiters up to take care of the most important human-led jobs. 

Skills assessments are an area in which AI shines. It can compile results, identify the best candidates for the job and deliver suggestions straight to you. 

Techniques like these also boost DE&I hiring, leaving no space for biases in the recruitment process and ensuring you’re delivering the very best candidates for the job. 

Overcoming Common Pipeline Challenges

One major advantage of employing a recruitment pipeline is the ability to spot and quickly solve bottlenecks and inefficiencies within your processes. 

Here are some of the most common pipeline challenges and how to resolve them. 

1. Activity Drops Sharply After Q1

As every recruiter knows, the first quarter of the year is a whirlwind as job seekers search for a fresh start and companies amp up hiring. 

However, OneUp data shows that this Q1 spike is immediately followed by a significant drop in activity. 

Indeed, metrics dropped across the board in April 2023, including jobs added, CVs sent, first interviews, placements, revenue, and business development calls. 

After so much activity in Q1, this is a natural lull compounded by the holiday period in April-May, which means fewer people are in work.

Armed with this knowledge, recruiters can intelligently plan their pipeline for this period ahead of time to ensure they have plenty of work coming through and don’t experience this drop-off. 

2. The Festive Lull

Unsurprisingly, figures across the board drop off in December as recruitment agencies, job seekers, and businesses wind down in the run-up to Christmas.

This results in a drop in placements in January, with little action in the pipeline as the new year is rung in. 

Indeed, in 2023, January saw the lowest placement rates of the entire year, except for December itself.

While recruiters can’t entirely counteract the festive lull, with many contacts taking annual leave at this time of year, they can seek to fill their pipeline for January by using this inactive time to make more BD calls. 

Indeed, while recruitment agencies made over 650 business development calls on average in January 2023, this dropped to less than 250 in December.

With less competition out there, this presents an opportunity for recruiters who are willing to pick up the phone at this quieter time of year. 

3. More Jobs Added, Fewer CVs Sent

OneUp research shows that in 2023, the jobs added metric gradually increased as the year progressed, but the number of CVs being sent declined.

This means that the number of CVs being sent to each open job also declined as the year went on. 

The implication here is that hiring managers are being given less choice and, as a result, are delivered lower-quality candidates. 

Reps should focus on retaining their Q1 momentum in order to book more first interviews. 

A stronger focus on leading activities such as sending CVs and booking interviews should help drive pipeline results as other agencies struggle later in the year.

Measuring the Success of Your Recruitment Pipeline

Your recruitment KPIs are those metrics that define each stage of the pipeline:

1. Jobs Added
2. CVs Sent
3. First Interviews
4. Placements Filled
5. Revenue

Tracking these metrics will give you a solid overview of how your recruitment pipeline is performing — and flag up any issues you need to take action on. 

Here’s a look at what the average recruitment pipeline looked like in 2023 for one successful permanent placement filled:

However, other recruitment metrics can also give valuable insights into pipeline activity. 

These include:

• Candidate Calls — this metric is a useful indication of the health of your candidate pool
• Business Development Calls — are you contacting enough potential new clients to keep that revenue high?

So, how can you track these metrics? 

Recruiting analytics software OneUp’s ‘Analyse’ product gives you visibility into the data you need to track your KPIs and hit your targets faster.

Drawing data from your CRM, VoIP, Sales Engagement, and Timesheets software in real-time, OneUp allows you to build custom reports for your team, your leadership, and yourself. 

This way, you can quickly view and analyse your data all in one place.

Create a custom dashboard for every employee that displays their goals and the relevant metrics.

They can then watch their progress towards their targets in real time.

You can also employ the ‘Expected Results’ functionality to see whether teams and recruiters are on track to hit their goals, and set up target templates to make onboarding new recruits easy. 

Now you’ve consolidated your data, it’s time to deep dive into the analytics behind the metrics. 

Drag and drop tables make it simple to view metrics from all your systems alongside each other — giving you a helpful overview of your pipeline.

You can also save as many reports as you like on OneUp so that all-important data is just a click away. 

Meanwhile, automated reports delivered directly to your inbox ensure data is always forefront of mind, while saving you time. 

Drill down into your analytics to see which actions contributed to your target metrics over any period of time — and then take proactive action to ensure your team stays on track. 

Future Trends in Recruitment Pipelines

What does the recruitment pipeline of the future look like?

Complete digitalisation 

This will come as no surprise — and we’re already some of the way there — but the hiring process is expected to become completely digitised. 

Digital tools and platforms such as online jobs boards, video interviewing, and recruitment analytics are already in wide use across the industry. 

Not to mention that much of the communication between candidates and recruiters now takes place over email or online messaging services. 

But we can expect the digital trend to take over every element of the recruitment pipeline in the coming year. 

Why?

Doing things digitally is more efficient and productive, and in an era of remote working, it makes sense. 

Think interviewing candidates via one-way video, automated posting on jobs boards, and skills assessments in the form of online games. 

Ultimately, every stage of the process will be digitised using powerful recruitment tools. 

More AI and Automation

AI development and uptake snowballed in 2023, and we can expect to see more of the same. 

These cutting-edge technologies are beneficial for time-poor recruiters, ramping up your agency's productivity while cutting costs. 

What’s more, AI-powered tools can help you deliver higher-quality candidates to clients. 

They can sort through more CVs, eliminate biases from the hiring process, and crunch the numbers to ensure the candidate who is truly the best fit bags the job.

Indeed, recruiters will no longer need to manually sort through CVs, with AI-powered tools able to vet resumes and match them with the right job opening. 

Automation will take care of the admin at each stage of the hiring process — from scheduling first interviews and co-ordinating contract signings, to chatbots that can source candidates and answer FAQs. 

The Rise of the Candidate Experience

With fierce competition for top talent, the candidate experience will become more important to clients and applicants. 

In fact, it could become a key differentiator in deciding whether your candidate takes the job with your client or opts for another role. 

Recruiters must turn to tech to help their clients stand out for all the right reasons. 

The candidate experience should be seamless, transparent, and present an attractive employer brand. 

Anything less, and you’ll likely deter the best candidates from taking the job. 

Final Thoughts

A robust recruitment pipeline means that your agency is running smoothly and successfully. 

As a recruitment leader, it's your responsibility to always be aware of what's happening in your agency. 

How many jobs were added this week?

How many CVs were sent? 

How many first interviews were booked?

How many placements were filled?

How much revenue did you generate?

And do you need to be worried about any of the above? Do you need to adjust or adapt any of your tactics or processes to improve your pipeline?

Creating a recruiting pipeline starts with a clear and accurate overview.

And using cutting edge tech like OneUp, it’s now easy to gain a real-time insight into operations and deep dive into the data behind those KPIs. 

Adopting recruiting analytics software is vital for the early detection and resolution of issues within your pipeline, and growing your revenue. 

And as discussed above, platforms like OneUp are essential motivational tools to add to your recruitment arsenal. 

Book your OneUp demo here today.

FAQs

What is a Pipeline in Recruitment?

So, what does pipeline mean in recruiting?

A recruiting pipeline is a way of visualising your recruitment process and organising your recruiting data. 

Your recruitment process is broken down into five stages:

• Jobs Added
• CVs Sent
• First Interviews
• Placements Filled
• Revenue 

At each stage of the pipeline, recruiters must complete various tasks to either eliminate candidates from the process or move them to the next stage.

Tracking and analysing these five KPIs at each stage of the pipeline helps to ensure your recruitment processes are healthy and robust. 

How to Build a Recruiting Pipeline?

When building a recruiting pipeline, you must first collect and collate accurate data surrounding the five recruiting pipeline stages above. 

Then, integrate OneUp with your current tech stack and set up the five metrics above in a customised recruitment pipeline dashboard. 

You should now be able to see your recruitment pipeline with real-time data at every stage. 

Finally, automate the recruiting pipeline report so an update lands in your inbox first thing every morning.

What Are the Benefits of Recruitment Pipelines?

Benefits of well-structured recruitment pipelines include increased efficiency, improved candidate experience, a more agile hiring strategy, and enhanced candidate quality.