The Starting Point
A mid-sized staffing agency manages recruitment for six active clients simultaneously. Candidates come through multiple channels, including direct applications, referrals, job boards, and four external recruitment vendors.
The agency's recruitment process runs on a shared Excel workbook, with one tab for each client. Recruiters manually update candidate records, while vendor commissions are calculated separately at the end of each month.
Client reporting is also handled manually. Each client receives a version of the spreadsheet containing the information relevant to them.
As the agency grows, a simple business question becomes increasingly difficult to answer:
Which client, recruiter, or vendor is actually contributing the most value to the business?
The answer is buried across spreadsheets, candidate records, vendor information, and manual calculations.
"I'd have to go dig for it."
The Challenge
The agency's biggest challenge was not a lack of recruitment data. It was the lack of a connected view across clients, candidates, recruiters, vendors, and hiring outcomes.
The team needed better visibility into:
- Client-wise recruitment performance
- Recruiter contribution
- Vendor performance
- Candidate sources
- Source-to-join conversion
- Vendor commission calculations
- Candidate and joining status
- Client-specific reporting
Without a centralized recruitment workflow, comparing this information required manual reconciliation and increased the risk of inconsistent reporting.
What Moved Onto PyHire
With PyHire, each of the agency's six clients could operate within its own isolated workspace, with separate users, branding, and reporting access, while the agency retained a consolidated operational view across its client accounts.
Candidate sources could also be tracked throughout the recruitment lifecycle.
Each candidate could be associated with a source such as:
- Direct application
- Employee referral
- Job board
- External recruitment vendor
This allowed the agency to connect the candidate's original source with their progress through the recruitment pipeline and eventual joining status.
Bringing Vendor Commission Tracking Into the Workflow
Recruitment vendors can operate under different commercial arrangements. Depending on the agreement, commissions may be based on:
- A percentage of CTC
- A fixed placement fee
- A per-join fee
- A defined guarantee period
Instead of manually reconstructing vendor payouts at the end of each month, vendor commission terms could be configured within the recruitment workflow.
As candidates progressed through selection and joining, the applicable commission could be tracked according to the configured terms.
This creates a more consistent basis for monitoring vendor commissions and can help reduce disputes caused by manual calculations or incomplete records.
From Candidate Volume to Hiring Outcomes
The agency previously knew how many candidates different sources were providing.
But candidate volume alone does not answer the more important question:
Which sources actually produce successful hires?
With candidate source tracking, the agency can follow candidates from their original source through the recruitment pipeline and joining stage.
This makes it possible to compare metrics such as:
- Candidates sourced
- Candidates shortlisted
- Candidates interviewed
- Candidates selected
- Candidates joined
- Source-to-join conversion
For example, a vendor submitting 100 resumes but producing only two successful joins may deliver less hiring value than a vendor submitting 30 candidates and producing eight successful joins.
This provides recruitment teams with a more meaningful way to evaluate sourcing channels and vendor relationships.
Client-by-Client Visibility
Managing recruitment for multiple clients becomes increasingly complex when each client has different hiring requirements, users, positions, and reporting needs.
With separate client workspaces, the agency can maintain client-specific recruitment information while retaining an overall view of operations.
This can help teams monitor:
- Open positions
- Candidate pipelines
- Hiring progress
- Recruiter activity
- Vendor contribution
- Candidate sources
- Joining status
- Recruitment performance
Instead of maintaining multiple versions of spreadsheets, the agency can work with structured recruitment data and generate reporting based on the relevant client or account.
What Changed, Directionally
Moving recruitment operations from disconnected spreadsheets into a centralized workflow changes how the agency can evaluate its recruitment business.
Client performance becomes easier to analyze
Instead of manually reconciling information across six spreadsheet tabs, recruitment activity can be viewed by individual client.
Vendor performance becomes measurable
The agency can compare vendors based not only on candidate submissions, but also on selection and joining outcomes.
Commission tracking becomes more consistent
Configured vendor terms provide a standardized basis for tracking applicable commissions.
Source-to-join conversion becomes visible
The agency can identify which sourcing channels produce candidates who ultimately join.
Recruiter contribution becomes easier to evaluate
Recruitment activity and candidate outcomes can be analyzed to understand recruiter-level performance.
Client reporting becomes more structured
Each client can access relevant information from its own workspace without relying on manually filtered versions of a shared spreadsheet.
The Underlying Lesson
For a staffing agency managing multiple clients, recruiters, and external recruitment vendors, the profitability question was never necessarily unanswerable.
The information was simply distributed across disconnected records.
When the client, candidate, recruiter, vendor, source, placement, and commission become connected parts of the recruitment workflow, agencies can gain a more structured view of how their recruitment operations are performing.
What previously required someone to say:
"I'd have to go dig for it."
can instead become information that is available through a centralized recruitment management system.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can staffing agencies track recruitment performance by client?
A centralized recruitment management system can connect candidates, positions, recruiters, vendors, hiring outcomes, and other recruitment activity to individual client accounts, making client-level performance easier to monitor.
How can recruitment agencies track vendor commissions?
Vendor commission rules can be configured according to the applicable commercial arrangement, such as a percentage of CTC, fixed placement fee, per-join fee, or guarantee period. The applicable commission can then be tracked as candidates progress through the hiring process.
Why is candidate source tracking important?
Candidate source tracking helps staffing agencies understand which channels and vendors generate successful hires rather than measuring performance only by the number of resumes submitted.
What is source-to-join conversion?
Source-to-join conversion measures how effectively a recruitment source converts candidates into successful joins. It helps agencies compare the effectiveness of different sourcing channels and vendors.
Can staffing software manage multiple clients?
Multi-client recruitment software can provide separate client workspaces, users, access controls, and reporting while allowing the staffing agency to maintain a consolidated operational view.
See How PyHire Can Support Your Recruitment Operations
Manage candidates, clients, recruiters, and recruitment vendors through a structured recruitment workflow with PyHire.
Explore PyHire to bring greater visibility and control to your staffing operations.
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Book a walkthrough and we’ll show you how PyHire handles the workflows described above.
