Recruiting Software VS CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

What is CRM? If I buy CRM software will I be a better recruiter?
Should recruiting software have CRM features? Do recruiting software vendors include CRM in their product?
I think CRM is a lot of smoke created by some very good marketing people who could sell ice to Eskimos.
A common definition for CRM is “The process of using information to find, secure and keep customers. The people, events, and questions associated with marketing, sales, and service”. Yikes! I thought that is what recruiting is?
Why am I on such a soap box? Because I talk to about 50 different recruiters and recruitment firm owners a week and every once in a while I get asked does this software contain CRM. A few years back when the question was asked I was at a loss for words. I had no idea what they were talking about. I was terribly concerned that after 25 years in the recruiting industry putting in 10 hours a day seven days a week I had completely missed something and an entire process went right over my head.
So I went to work reading and studying everything I could find on CRM and came to the conclusion that CRM and recruiting software are one and the same. If your recruiting software does not have the characteristics defined by CRM then you do not have recruiting software.
First of all, who are the customers of an executive recruiter? Candidates and clients are! As any recruiter knows the product of a recruiter is also the customer, the candidate, one unique characteristic of the recruiting industry.
Let’s go back to that CRM definition above. “The process of using information to find, secure and keep customers”. Your recruiting software must be used to find and track candidates and clients. Once found the software has to keep them available to you through periodic contact.
Next, “The people, events and questions associated with marketing, sales and service”. Ok, if your recruiting software cannot help you market to different demographics of clients and candidates then why are you using it? What are you using to market to clients and candidates? Do you have a separate system for this? Do you have a separate database for marketing to clients, a separate database for marketing to candidates? Do candidates sometimes become clients? Do clients sometimes become candidates? Is candidate John Smith repeated in the client Database and then again in a separate marketing system? How silly these questions are! If you answer yes to any of the above I suggest you reconsider your whole approach to recruiting.
And if you have this separation how in the world are you ever going to keep track of the events and questions? Perhaps if they are all separate I can sell you business idiot consolidation software that will pull all these desperate systems together for you.
So I will answer the leading questions. If I buy CRM software will I be a better recruiter? No, because you’re an idiot for having recruiting software that is not also CRM. Should recruiting software have CRM features? Of course, CRM and recruiting software are one and the same thing. Do recruiting software vendors include CRM in their product? Yes, if they don’t they are not a recruiting software vendor.