Lead Generation for Staffing and Recruiting Agencies
We do lead gen for staffing firms. Of all the industries we work in, this is the one where the buying signal is the most obvious, because a job posting is literally the customer announcing what they need, with a title, a location, and a date on it. The trick is knowing which postings are worth your time, and when.
We watch for roles that have been open too long, companies whose postings just spiked, and managers who just got the budget or the new boss that means hiring's coming. We email the hiring manager that week about that role. When they write back, it goes to the recruiter working that desk. Starts as low as $2,999 a month, month to month.
Who you're selling to, and why the usual approach doesn't work on them
Your buyer is a hiring manager with a req they can't fill. A controller, a plant manager, an engineering director. They do not want to pay a fee. They pay one when the seat's been empty long enough that it's costing more than the fee would, or when a candidate shows up who they couldn't have found themselves.
Business development at most staffing firms is done by recruiters who'd rather be recruiting. They call the same companies every quarter, hear "we have a preferred vendor list," and go back to the desk. The firms that grow have someone whose whole job is new business, and most firms under $20M don't.
The lead gen vendors make this worse. They email every HR director at every company between 100 and 1,000 people offering "top talent" and "a consultative approach." HR directors get that email from six firms a week and delete all of them, and the reply rates on those programs show it.
The company that'll sign a fee agreement this month has a role that's been open seven weeks and a manager doing two jobs until it's filled. That company is findable from public postings, and it isn't on the HR director's list.
What we watch for
There are five signals. They are all public and dated, and they all indicate that a manager needs a candidate.
A role's been open more than 45 days. We track when a posting first showed up and when it got reposted. A role in its seventh week is one the internal team couldn't fill, and the manager knows it. We name the role, the date it went up, and offer candidates already in process. This is the best signal we have in any industry.
Postings spike at one company. A company that had two open roles last month and eleven this month has a hiring plan its recruiting team can't absorb. We email the department head with the most reqs and offer to take the overflow, contract or direct.
Money or space shows up. That means a funding round, a government contract award, or a new facility, and headcount follows within 30 to 60 days. We get there before the postings do and offer to build the pipeline ahead of the reqs.
A new department head arrives. A new VP of Engineering or a new plant manager builds a team in the first 90 days and usually brings a shortlist of firms from the last job. We land in the first month, before the shortlist gets called, and offer a first search on contingency.
An in-house recruiter leaves. You can see it on LinkedIn, and then the recruiter role shows up on the company's own careers page. Open reqs and nobody working them. We offer to cover the desk until the replacement starts.
What the email looks like
Subject: The Controller role, open since July 14
Hi Denise,
Saw the Controller posting's been up since mid-July and was reposted last week. We have two controllers in process right now who came out of manufacturing companies your size, both within 40 miles of the plant.
We'd only send the profiles if the role's still open and you'd take a candidate from outside your posting flow. Standard contingency, no exclusivity.
Is the seat still open?
Marcus
Marcus is your BD lead or one of your recruiters. The role, the date, and the repost came from the signal. The email offers specific people. In week seven, that's the only thing a hiring manager wants to hear about.
Want to know how many roles in your specialty have been open more than 45 days in your market right now? Book a 15-minute call and we'll pull the number before you get on it.
What we mean by "lead"
A hiring manager with an open role that fits your specialty, geography, and fee model wrote back, and it's booked as a call with your BD lead or handed straight to the recruiter on that desk. We don't count an HR director saying "send us your capabilities."
Before anything sends we write down the line with you: job families you place, direct hire or contract or both, salary bands, geography, and the companies to leave out because they run a vendor management system that won't let a new firm in.
That last one matters more in staffing than anywhere else. Big companies route all agency hiring through a VMS with a locked vendor list, and emailing their managers wastes everyone's time. We screen them out before the first send and keep adding to the list from replies.
You see every reply, including the ones that say no.
How it runs
Week one we set up sending domains and mailboxes in your name, agree the line and the VMS exclusions, and turn on posting-age tracking and the other four signals for your job families and territory.
Week two the first emails go out under your recruiter's or BD lead's name. Every one names the role and the date it went up.
Replies go to the recruiter working that desk the same day, with the posting, the age, and the thread, so the first call is about the candidates and not about your firm.
Every morning we look at yesterday's job orders against the target. If we hit it, we send more. If we missed it, it's one of four things: wrong companies, not enough of them, the email was off, or it didn't land. We find which, fix it, and that's what goes out today. You can follow it in the log.
When you leave, the domains and mailboxes are yours.
What it costs
Starts as low as $2,999 a month, month to month. No setup fee, no minimum term.
That covers domains, mailboxes, warmup, posting-age tracking, the other signals, the copy, sending, replies, handoff to the desk, and the daily log.
It doesn't cover a caller. If you want phone and LinkedIn on top, that's the outbound program, linked below. A lot of staffing firms keep the calling in-house and just take the email from us. Their recruiters are on the phone all day anyway.
Results
Those are software, logistics, and restaurant clients. We'll put a staffing number here the first time a staffing client lets us use their name.
Book a 15-minute fit call
Tell us your job families, your territory, and whether you place direct, contract, or both. We'll tell you whether we'd take the account, how many aging roles are in your market this month, and, if it shouldn't be us, who to call instead.
Other ways we work with Staffing and Recruiting Agencies
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if your recruiters will make the follow-up calls and you want the email built on posting age instead of a company list.
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if you want email plus LinkedIn and calling with our team on the phones.
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if you want to retarget the same hiring-manager list with paid social.
Lead Generation for other industries
Questions people ask us
Every staffing firm emails the same job postings. Why would ours get answered?
Because most firms email the day the posting goes up, when the manager still thinks the internal team will fill it. We email in week seven, when the manager's given up on that, and the email names the date and offers people instead of a capabilities deck. Timing and the specific offer are the difference.
Do you email hiring managers or HR?
Hiring managers. HR owns the vendor list and says no to new firms. The manager with the empty seat says yes and tells HR to sort out the paperwork.
How do you avoid companies locked into a VMS?
We build an exclusion list before the first send from companies known to run Fieldglass, Beeline, or something like them, plus whatever you tell us. It's not perfect, and we add to it from the replies in the first month.
Does this work for contract and temp, or just direct hire?
Both. The posting-spike signal fits contract staffing best, because a company adding eleven roles in a month usually wants some of them on contract. The aging-role signal fits direct hire. We set the line for whichever you place.
Can our recruiters send under their own names?
Yes, and they should. Emails go out under the recruiter's name on mailboxes you own, and replies come back to that desk. A hiring manager wants to talk to the person with the candidates.
How fast do job orders start?
Usually weeks two to four, which is faster than most of our other industries, because the aging-role signal comes with a manager who's already in pain. The first fee agreement usually follows inside two months.