By Nikki Barnes, Head of Implementations
October 22, 2025
In times where HR leaders are being asked to tighten their belts, their eyes go to expensive software, and the Candidate Relationship Manager (CRM) is often assessed to see if there is truly a value. The recruiting CRM is generally the face of recruiting in the tech stack. It is the career site, the lead collection and the campaign tool, but it can often be ignored and underutilized. If you are looking at your CRM thinking, "We could probably cut this and save some money," then let's chat.
Here are five things I would look at improving before throwing out my CRM:
1. Automation – Most CRMs have the technology to automate communications and tasks. Have you leveraged drip campaigns, email blasts, text campaigns (if you have texting), interview scheduling and status updates? I challenge you to review your current process to see what administrative tasks are done manually and if they can be automated. In today’s market, there is an influx of candidates, and sourcing may not be needed as much, so think about how you can use automation to make the administrative burden on the recruiter or coordinators easier.
2. AI Agents – Investigate whether your CRM vendor offers AI agents for tasks that cannot be automated using conventional methods. Sometimes a small investment in an AI agent will save your company large amounts of money in overhead. While looking into these agents, I would caution you to also think about the candidate's experience. Sometimes saving on overhead will come at the expense of the candidate, and when the market shifts back to favoring candidates (like during 2021-2023 when candidates were ghosting employers), you will want to ensure that those candidates return.
3. Integrations – The backbone of a successful tech stack is dependent on solid integrations. If your CRM does not have a bi-directional feed with your Applicant Tracking System (ATS), a recruiter is going to see it as just another system on their long list of systems to navigate . In my experience, CRM adoption will increase when recruiters see that the system will save them time. Recruiters are managing hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of candidates at a time. It’s asking a lot when you’re expecting them to toggle multiple systems to try and manage the process. The moment they see something that will slow them down is the moment you have lost them. Other integrations that would make their life easier are job posting feeds supporting remote jobs, employee data feeds, Single Sign On (SSO) and user feeds for hiring managers.
4. Process & Adoption – Process goes hand in hand with integrations. When you are looking at your overall recruiting process, is it a free-for-all where recruiters follow the business or is it guided by a process and policy where recruiters lead the business? All too often recruiting is driven by the business when they need to be a strategic partner. A recruiting process that is designed and outlined with the CRM in mind will provide metric points for value analysis, visibility to optimize and automate and the ability to infuse your company values.
5. Analytics – How do you measure the success of your CRM? Make sure that for whatever changes you are making to the system or process you have a baseline metric established that you can measure success against. The reason you purchased the CRM may not be the reason you want to keep it now. Sometimes the goalpost changes, and you need to define your WHY and then ensure you can show the value in numbers. For example, if I determined that one of the values the CRM was going to bring is automating communications to partial applicants, I would want to measure the success of those automations. How many candidates are being hired from the automation, how many were interviewed and how many came back to complete their applications?
My last bit of advice for anyone tackling an HRIS project would be to lean out. HRIS is programmed to get wrapped up in the details, because each small thing in a system can make a big difference. But it is so important to take several steps back and look at the big picture. Ask yourself, “How will this system tie into our broader HR vision? Do these new processes align with our company values?” Imagine what good looks like outside of the systems and then make sure that your system fits into your talent strategy.