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Field Notes · Issue 004 · 7 November 2025 · 9 min read

How to choose a recruitment CRM

Five questions to ask before you sign anything. The wrong CRM costs you two years and a third of your team.

Updated 12 Jul 2026

Most buyer guides for recruitment CRMs are written for agencies. This one is written for the specialist recruiter inside an agency. Eight criteria, in the order they matter when the desk is a niche.

01 · Niche vocabulary

Does it speak the language of your specialism, or the average of every specialism. Test it on the words your candidates actually use.

02 · Source attribution

Can you click on a suggestion and see the line it came from. If not, the suggestion is a guess.

03 · Memory horizon

How far back does it remember, and how surfaceable is that memory in the moment you need it.

04 · Capture surface

What does it take in by itself, without you typing it. Articles, posts, call notes. The less you key in, the more honest the record.

05 · Draft quality

Read three drafts it makes from real context. Would you send them. Would you have written them better. The gap is your answer.

06 · Send control

You approve every send. No exceptions. If the system can send for you, it can send what you would not have sent.

07 · Niche scoping

Can you run more than one niche without bleeding context between them. Generalist software cannot.

08 · Learning loop

Does it tell you what it learned about you this week. If the system is not getting smarter, you are renting the same software twice.


How Holi scores. Read the Holi version of the recruitment CRM, or the comparison against Recruit CRM.

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Asked, and answered

What matters most when choosing a recruitment CRM for a specialist desk?
Niche vocabulary, source attribution, memory horizon, and draft quality. The desk is judgement-led, so the system has to make judgement easier, not faster.
Do I need a different recruitment CRM if I run more than one niche?
You need one that can scope context per niche without bleeding signals between them. Most generalist systems cannot.
How do I test a recruitment CRM before buying?
Read three drafts it makes from your own real context. Would you send them? Would you have written them better? The gap is your answer.
Should a recruitment CRM ever send messages on my behalf?
No. You approve every send. If the system can send for you, it can send what you would not have sent.

About the author

James Doyle

Founder, HOLI

James founded HOLI to build a partner for specialist recruiters — the kind that captures the intelligence you gather and turns it into the action that wins the role. Twenty years in specialist search across healthcare, behavioural health, and creative.

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Cite this piece

James Doyle (2025). How to choose a recruitment CRM. Field Notes, HOLI. https://hey-holi.com/field-notes/how-to-choose-a-recruitment-crm

Published 7 November 2025.

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