A recruitment agency's contact inbox on a Monday morning: thirty messages from candidates asking about roles, application status or how to register. Five CVs sent without context. A job board salesperson. And two messages from companies that want to hire, one of them for three permanent roles. The client messages are the ones that pay the bills. They are also the hardest to spot.
Recruitment agencies have two audiences using the same front door. Mixing them slows everything down.
Two very different audiences
Candidates want to know about roles, how to apply, whether their application has been seen and what happens next. Many questions are routine and repeated.
Clients want to fill a vacancy, often urgently. They want to know the agency's experience, fees and how quickly it can send candidates. They expect a fast, personal reply.
The same inbox cannot serve both well.
Why client enquiries get buried
Candidate messages usually outnumber client messages many times over. Recruiters work through them in order. A client enquiry that arrives on Friday afternoon may not be answered until Monday lunchtime, by which point the client has called another agency.
Sorting at the door
A simple first question separates the streams: "Are you looking to hire, or looking for work?" Clients go to the business development team with their vacancy details captured. Candidates get answers to routine questions and are pointed to the right roles or registration page.
SpideyChat for recruitment agencies asks this in conversation, answers candidate questions from your own pages and captures client vacancy details for the right recruiter. More on how agencies use it is in AI receptionist for recruitment agencies.
Visitor: We need to hire two warehouse supervisors urgently. Assistant: Thanks for getting in touch. Warehouse and logistics roles are one of the agency's specialisms. So a consultant can get back to you quickly, could you share your company name, location, when you need them to start and the best way to reach you?
Candidates out of hours
Many candidates look for jobs in the evening and at weekends, when they are not at work. Engaging them then keeps good candidates from drifting to other agencies, as described in how recruitment agencies engage candidates out of hours.
Status questions
"Have you seen my application?" is one of the most common candidate questions. Explaining the process and typical timelines on the website reduces it. Existing clients of agencies in other sectors ask similar repeated update questions, described in agency retainer clients asking the same update questions.
Fees and terms for clients
Hiring managers often want to know an agency's fees and terms before they share a vacancy. A short page explaining how fees work, whether there is a rebate period and what the process looks like helps clients decide quickly. It also means the first conversation can focus on the role rather than the contract.
Specialist sectors
Agencies that specialise in particular sectors, such as healthcare, engineering or hospitality, should say so clearly. Clients look for agencies that understand their field, and candidates look for agencies that place people like them. Clear sector pages give both groups the confidence to get in touch, and give the assistant the material to answer sector questions accurately.
Monday mornings
If the weekend's messages are already sorted, with client enquiries flagged, Monday becomes manageable. The general approach is covered in clearing the Monday backlog.
One question that changes the inbox
Add the hiring-or-looking question to your contact route, and make sure client enquiries reach a consultant the same day. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about routing on the features page.