Converting a hiring manager's enquiry

What happens in the Recruiting pack when a hiring manager's enquiry is converted into a client and a vacancy, and what to capture before you convert.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Recruitment businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.

An operations manager at a logistics company calls the agency: they need a warehouse supervisor, quickly. A consultant takes notes on a pad, promises a shortlist, and starts calling candidates that afternoon. Two weeks later the agency has three candidates interviewing, but no client record, no signed terms of business, and no clear note of what was agreed on that first call. When the placement is made, the fee becomes a negotiation.

The first conversation with a hiring manager is where a placement is won or lost commercially. Turning it into proper records at the right moment, with the right information, saves arguments later. The Recruiting pack in Achekam's Industry CRM add-on makes that a single step.

Enquiries from hiring managers

Hiring enquiries arrive in many ways: a phone call, an e-mail to a consultant, a referral from a placed candidate, a form on the agency's website. Before anything is agreed, each one is a lead, an expression of interest from someone who might become a client.

Keeping enquiries as leads, rather than going straight to work, gives the agency a pause to ask whether it wants the work. Not every vacancy is worth taking: some clients never pay a fee, some roles are unrealistic, some hiring managers are collecting CVs with no intention of hiring through an agency. A quick qualification before converting saves weeks of wasted search.

One conversion creates the client and the vacancy

When the agency decides to take the work, the consultant converts the lead. In the Industry CRM, converting a lead creates the customer and the industry's main record at once, and starts that record's workflow.

For the Recruiting pack, which keeps Vacancies, Candidates with their interviews, and Placements followed through the guarantee period, that means one conversion produces:

• the client, as a customer of the agency;
• the vacancy, as the main record for the work;
• the vacancy's workflow, started and ready for its first steps.

Each industry pack sets the words the screens use, its record types, pipelines, workflows, document requests, documents to sign, reminders, starter catalogue, ledger accounts and home-page counts. For recruitment, the screens speak the language a consultant already uses.

Candidates are kept separately: each one is a customer in their own right, not filed under the client, which is covered in candidates as their own customers.

The vacancy intake workflow starts

The workflow that starts on conversion is the vacancy intake. It takes the brief, requests the job description, has the client sign the terms of business electronically, and sends a shortlist of screened candidates who agreed to be put forward.

A workflow step can send the customer a request for documents or a document to sign electronically, and the customer's answer moves the task on. In practice:

The terms of business step deserves emphasis. Getting them signed at intake, before any candidate is put forward, is far easier than chasing a signature once the client has met someone they like. Each step is described in detail in vacancy intake and terms.

What to capture before converting

Because conversion creates two records at once, capture the essentials on the lead first, so they carry through:

1. The company's legal name, as it appears on its registration, not the trading name the hiring manager used.
2. The hiring manager, with role, e-mail and phone.
3. Who signs and who pays: often HR or procurement rather than the hiring manager.
4. The role: title, location, reporting line, and whether it is permanent, temporary or contract.
5. The salary range and timing the hiring manager gave, in their words.
6. How the enquiry arrived, so the agency can see later which sources bring real work.

The CIPD's introduction to recruitment walks through the recruitment process from workforce planning and defining the role to attracting candidates and making the appointment. A hiring manager who has not yet defined the role clearly is a sign the brief will change; note it on the lead.

Duplicate enquiries from the same company

Larger clients produce several enquiries from different managers, sometimes for the same role. If each is converted separately without a check, the agency ends up with the same company as two or three customers, each with its own terms of business and its own payment history.

Before converting, search the agency's existing customers for the company, by its legal name and any trading names. Then decide:

• Existing client, new vacancy: do not create the company again. The new vacancy belongs with the existing customer, so the client relationship and its terms stay in one place.
• Same vacancy, second manager: treat it as one vacancy and note both managers; do not open a second search.
• Genuinely new client: convert as normal.

Agree within the agency who checks, especially when several consultants work the same market. One consultant owning each client relationship is the simplest safeguard.

A pre-conversion checklist

• Qualified: the agency wants this work.
• Legal company name confirmed.
• Signatory and payer identified.
• Role, salary range and timing noted.
• Existing customers searched for the company.

When the pack is switched on, agree the checklist above with your consultants, and ask them to apply it to the next enquiry before pressing convert.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.