Helping clients onboard the candidates you place
How a recruitment agency can help a client onboard a placed candidate so the placement lasts, and how the Recruiting pack stays in touch meanwhile.
By Achekam · · 5 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 agency can run a flawless search, present a strong shortlist and negotiate a fair offer, and still lose the placement in the new hire's first month. The reasons are rarely about the candidate's ability. More often, nobody told them where to park, their laptop arrived in week three, and the manager who hired them was away for the first fortnight.
Strictly speaking, onboarding is the employer's job. But an agency whose fee depends on the candidate staying through a guarantee period has every reason to help the client do it well. This article looks at what good onboarding involves, what the agency can sensibly suggest, and how Achekam's Recruiting pack keeps the agency involved until the guarantee period ends.
Orientation is a morning; onboarding is much longer
SHRM draws a clear line between the two. Orientation covers paperwork and other routine tasks. Onboarding is a comprehensive process that involves management and other employees, and it can last up to 12 months.
Many clients, especially smaller ones without an HR department, treat the first-day induction as the whole job. The new hire signs the contract, gets a tour, receives a password and is left to work out the rest. A consultant who explains the difference, gently, during the offer stage is doing the client a favour.
Why the agency should care about the client's first weeks
SHRM cites a Gallup study finding that only 12 percent of employees felt their company did a great job with onboarding, and that those who did were nearly three times as likely to say they had the best possible job. SHRM also reports that, overall, only 29 percent of new hires felt prepared and supported to excel in their new role.
Those are SHRM's figures from its own sources rather than measurements of South African, Nigerian or Kenyan workplaces, but the message travels. Most new hires do not feel ready, and the ones who are well onboarded are far more positive about their jobs. For an agency, a positive new hire is a placement that survives the guarantee period and a client who calls again.
SHRM's complete employee onboarding guide explains why structured onboarding matters for retention and productivity, who is responsible for each part and how to tailor it to a role. It is a useful link to send a client who is open to advice.
The four parts, and where the agency fits
SHRM lists four integral onboarding components: preboarding, orientation, foundation building, and mentoring and buddy systems. The agency's influence is strongest at the start and fades as the employee settles in.
| Component | Who leads it | What the agency can do |
|---|---|---|
| Preboarding | Client, before the start date | Suggest specific steps, keep the candidate warm |
| Orientation | Client, first days | Check the client has a first-day plan |
| Foundation building | Client's manager, first months | Ask both sides how it is going |
| Mentoring and buddy | Client's team | Suggest a buddy is named before day one |
Preboarding ideas to put to the client
The gap between offer acceptance and the start date is risky. The candidate may be serving notice, receiving a counter-offer, or simply wondering whether they made the right choice. SHRM suggests preboarding activities such as inviting new employees to tour the facility, sending informational material, providing care packages and assigning a buddy before the official start date.
Translate those into a short note the consultant sends the client once the offer is accepted:
- an invitation for the candidate to visit the office, meet the team and see where they will sit;
- a welcome pack with the first week's schedule, the people they will meet and practical details such as parking and dress code;
- a named buddy who contacts the candidate before the start date;
- confirmation that equipment, system access and any site permits will be ready on the first morning.
Keep it short and practical. A client is more likely to act on four concrete suggestions than on a long document about best practice.
Staying in touch with the Recruiting pack
Good intentions about follow-up calls tend to evaporate when the next vacancy arrives. The Recruiting & staffing pack in Achekam's Industry CRM keeps Vacancies, Candidates with their interviews, and Placements, and each placement is followed through the guarantee period.
The pack's placement workflow confirms the start date, invoices the placement fee, and checks in until the guarantee period ends. That sequence gives onboarding a natural place in the agency's own process:
- When the start date is confirmed, the consultant sends the client the preboarding note and asks the candidate whether they have heard from the employer.
- On or after the first day, a check-in with the candidate covers orientation: did someone meet them, do they have what they need?
- Over the following weeks, check-ins with both sides cover foundation building and whether the buddy arrangement is working.
- Shortly before the guarantee period ends, a final check-in confirms the placement has settled.
In the Industry CRM, a workflow creates its tasks stage by stage, and tasks can have subtasks up to three levels deep. So a check-in task can carry subtasks such as "ask about equipment", "ask about the buddy" and "ask the manager for a first impression", and the next check-in appears when its stage arrives rather than all at once. The rhythm of those calls is covered further in following a placement after the start date.
Spotting a wobble before it becomes a rebate
Each check-in is a chance to hear early warning signs: a candidate who says the role is not what was described, a manager who has not yet met them properly, a client who mentions the new hire is "still finding their feet" in month two. Record what was said, and if a concern appears, add a subtask to follow it up with the client within days, not weeks.
The agency cannot fix a client's management, but it can raise a problem while there is still time to solve it. If the placement fails anyway, the terms of business decide what follows; see rebates when a placed candidate leaves early.
Draft the preboarding note your consultants will send after every accepted offer, and use it on the next placement before the candidate's notice period ends.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
