Building a Candidate Database: 5 Best Practices for Recruiters & Hiring Managers

A candidate database is a centralized repository of potential job candidates' resumes, profiles, and contact information. It’s used by recruiters and hiring managers to streamline talent sourcing, manage applicant data, and cultivate relationships with potential employees.

Whether you’re at a busy recruitment agency with thousands of contacts to organize, part of an internal team operating out of a shared Google Sheet, or one of the 90% of companies using an applicant tracking system (ATS) to manage candidates, you don’t want to overlook your database.

Here are five ways to transform your candidate database into a high-quality sourcing tool.

5 ways to get more out of your candidate database

Whether you’ve just set up your first database or are dreading the task of updating and organizing a list of hundreds of candidates, the following strategies will help you optimize your database for maximum recruitment ROI.

1. Segment your candidate data

Candidates don’t have time for bad tech or vague outreach. A modern talent acquisition strategy is all about giving them the seamless, personalized experiences they expect. By segmenting your database based on relevant candidate information, you can ensure that every piece of outgoing communication is tailored to candidates’ real interests and skill sets.

Here are some of the key criteria to consider when segmenting your database:

• Location
• Availability
• Skills
• Role
• Response
• Valid contact info

List the criteria that matter most. What are the top five must-know data points for your candidates? Are there any standard certifications they need? Any specific amount of experience? Run through your list and organize your database so that you can see all your candidate profiles in one clean view.

2. Consult your database first

According to our latest Sources of Hire data, the average time to hire on LinkedIn is 59 days. With a well-maintained candidate database, you can get a headstart on the competition by connecting with candidates who have already expressed an interest in working with you.

Why spend time and money fighting for the same candidates on the same platforms? With an up-to-date candidate database, you can search and filter for applicants with the skills and experience you’re looking for and create a shortlist of qualified candidates in a fraction of the time.

Here are some tips to help you find your best candidates quickly:

• Pre-screened candidates: Tag candidates who successfully progressed past any previous pre-screening processes, such as video assessments and/or candidate questionnaires.
• Mark your top candidates: Using a separate tag or label, note or ‘star’ the candidates who made it to the final rounds of the hiring process, like the onsite meet-and-greet, interview process, or final project round.
• Review interview scorecards: For all the candidates who made it to the interview round in the past, review their resumes and interview answers to see whether their skills and interests align with new roles or job opportunities.
• Create targeted talent pools: Save time by creating customized candidate pools for high-priority applicants.

Instead of spending time and money on recruitment ads, cold outreach, and clunky Boolean searches, a well-maintained candidate database gives you pre-vetted candidates who already know what you’re about.

3. Run a reactivation campaign

According to our latest Hiring Challenges Survey, 29% of employers say limited recruitment budgets are a challenge. With pressure to hire candidates faster, it can be tempting to run straight to your favorite premium job boards to find the candidates you need.

But if it’s been a while since your candidates have heard from you, consider running a reactivation campaign first to find out who’s still interested in working with you and remove any bouncebacks and low-engagement contacts.

Here are some steps to get you started:

• Send out an email updating candidates on your current direction as a company. Invite them to share it with anyone else who might be interested. This is a great way to reignite a ‘lukewarm’ conversation while encouraging future referrals.
• Schedule monthly or quarterly candidate emails sharing recent news, company updates, and job openings. Be transparent about recent company wins or changes in strategy and highlight the challenges you’re solving as a business.
• Don’t only share open positions – instead, focus on asking candidates questions that also provide some insight into where you’re going as a company

For example, maybe you’re steering your dev team towards code-free tools for specific tasks. You could send out a quick email or 1-2 minute survey asking candidates about their experience with certain tools.

By spending a little extra time with your candidate database every month, you can reduce your reliance on external costs and increase your recruitment ROI. Even one broad update email per month can be a great way to keep in touch with passive candidates and accelerate your time to hire.

4. Add a layer of automation

To continue growing your database of qualified candidates, consider adding a layer of automation to your existing tech stack.

This could be as simple as adding a chatbot to your careers page to greet applicants and answer their top frequently asked questions (FAQs), or a series of personalized, pre-scheduled emails to check in with key updates during the hiring process.

Consider updating your candidate communication to include emails and text messages aimed at:

• Circling back to unsuccessful applicants to ask if it’s ok for you to keep in touch regarding future updates and opportunities
• Engaging candidates in a two-way conversation, for example, by sending out a candidate experience survey to find out what candidates like and uncover any areas that could be improved
• Providing proactive updates at key touchpoints in the recruitment funnel

If you’re reaching out to your database about a specific role or opportunity, take time to segment your candidate lists and spell out your job requirements to make sure you’re connecting the right people to the right opportunities.

Whether you’re nurturing a select group of top candidates or targeting a specific talent pool for a specific open role, automated emails and text messages can help you spend less time worrying about ad budgets and LinkedIn Recruiter seats, and more time having the right conversations with the right candidates.

5. Track and scale your success

Whether you’re a recruiter or hiring manager, we’re all under pressure to do more with less. To justify the time you’re putting into your candidate database, track your recruitment analytics and sum up your findings in an easy-to-visualize report.

Consider monitoring the following metrics:

• Revenue per employee: What’s the impact on revenue from having this position stay open? Make it clear that the faster you fill your open roles, the better your bottom line.
• Candidate quality: Measure quality of hire on the candidates in your database based on factors like qualifications, experience, skills, and alignment with open job postings.
• Candidate engagement: Track how candidates interact with your communication, such as email open rates, click-through rates, and response rates.
• Time-to-fill: Monitor the time it takes to fill a position from the moment it’s posted to the moment a candidate is hired, then compare that to the time-to-fill rates on your job boards and paid sources.
• Conversion rate: Measure the percentage of candidates in your database who progress through the recruitment stages and eventually get hired.
• ROI on sourcing channels: Evaluate the return on investment from different candidate sourcing channels to determine the most effective sources for quality hires.
• Cost per hire: Calculate the total cost of hiring a candidate from your database, including recruitment expenses, advertising costs, and tech expenses.

Once you’ve got a solid benchmark to work with, you can start measuring the growth of your database over a set period of time, for example during peak hiring season or a year-over-year analysis. 

To gauge the effectiveness of your candidate nurturing strategies, you can also look at the number of candidates retained.

Benefits of a candidate database

According to our annual Hiring Challenges Survey, the top three recruiting challenges for employers are: not enough qualified candidates, finding candidates who stay, and competition from other companies.
A well-maintained candidate database answers each of these challenges directly. Here are just some of the benefits strong database management can deliver:

• Time savings: Recruiters spend up to 13 hours per week sourcing candidates. A well-organized database gives this time back to you and your team by keeping your most qualified candidates engaged and easy to find.
• Less competition: Instead of relying on the same pool of applicants from the same external sources, you can build your own database of pre-qualified candidates and focus on giving them an excellent experience until the right role opens up.
• Reduced ad spend: With the ability to nurture candidates organically, you can spend less time and money attracting traffic from non-qualified job seekers and more time getting to know the pre-vetted individuals in your database.
• Increased ROI: By accelerating time-to-fill and reducing recruitment ad spend, you can attract more qualified candidates with fewer hours and dollars invested.

With competition for top talent rising, you can’t afford to stay on the candidate search hamster wheel. By investing a little time each day into maintaining, nurturing, and growing your recruitment database, you can attract better candidates faster and at a fraction of the cost.

5 steps to create a recruitment database

With the right tools and a clear head for your target set of candidate criteria, it’s easy to create a recruitment database that gives you qualified candidates whenever you need them.

1. Define your requirements

What details are important to store in your database? This could be anything from education, certification, and of course, contact details. Just make sure you’re aware of the recruitment compliance requirements in your area to ensure that you don’t unintentionally violate any data protection laws.

2. Select a database system

In the past, growing businesses relied on spreadsheets, Airtable bases, and Trello boards to manage candidates. But with the rise of cloud-based recruitment software, there’s a range of affordable recruitment tools you can choose from. If you’re just getting started and have a lower volume of open roles, you can probably get by just fine with a spreadsheet-based or customer relationship management (CRM) system.

If you’re already in a spreadsheet, kanban, or project management tool and things are getting messy, now might be the time to consider a purpose-built recruitment software like an applicant tracking system.

3. Customize the database

Tailor your database fields and settings to align with your open roles, recruitment process, and data management requirements. Create specific lists and candidate pools based on your top priority skill sets, roles, and more.

4. Populate the database

Input all relevant candidate data into your database software, including resumes, contact details, and any additional information you need to quickly assess potential candidates. If you have candidate data spread across multiple HR tools and tech systems, consider using an ATS with an open API to sync and centralize your data.

5. Maintain and update

Keep your database in fighting form by regularly adding new candidates, removing duplicate or outdated information, and removing inaccurate data. Next time a role opens up, you’ll know exactly where to look for relevant, qualified candidates.

Grow your recruitment ROI with a user-friendly database that puts candidates first

To find qualified candidates that stay, look no further than your existing candidate database. You’d be surprised how many qualified candidates are sitting right there in plain sight.

By taking the time to update your database, and using simple automations to take the tick-list items off your list, you can free up more time for valuable face-to-face conversations with your best candidates.

Find out how Breezy can help you fill roles faster, reduce recruitment spend, and increase ROI. With Breezy’s open API, you can keep the tools you love and build an integrated candidate database that saves you time and money.