# Close CRM for Recruitment Agencies: How to Set It Up for Business Development

> Close is a sales CRM built around calling, email and follow-up, which makes it a good fit for the business development side of a recruitment agency. Set it up with one Lead per company, Smart Views as daily call lists, the Power Dialer for call blocks and an opportunity pipeline from first meeting to signed assignment.

Source: https://hiring-intelligence.io/en/blog/close-crm-for-recruitment-agencies
Author: Philipp Kaming · Published: 2026-11-08

Most recruitment agencies run two very different jobs through one system. On one side there are candidates, CVs, interviews and placements. On the other there is business development: finding companies that are hiring, getting the decision maker on the phone and turning a call into a meeting and a meeting into an assignment.

An applicant tracking system is built for the first job. It is rarely built for the second. That is why many agencies keep their ATS for delivery and use a separate sales CRM for winning clients. Close is one of the tools that comes up again and again for that second job, because it was built around calling and follow-up rather than around reporting.

## What is Close CRM?

Close is a sales CRM with calling, email, SMS and task management built into the same place where your leads live. A consultant works from one screen: who to call next, what happened last time, what to do after the call.

For an agency, the relevant building blocks are:

- **Leads and Contacts.** In Close, a Lead is the top-level record (usually the company), and Contacts are the people attached to it. For BD this maps neatly: one Lead per client company, with the hiring manager, HR lead and managing director as Contacts.
- **Lead Statuses.** A simple label for where a company stands, such as "New", "Contacted" or "Client".
- **Opportunities.** Deals attached to a Lead, each with its own status in a pipeline. This is where meetings and assignments live.
- **Smart Views.** Saved lead filters you can open with one click, for example "new companies hiring in my niche, never contacted".
- **Power Dialer and Predictive Dialer.** Dialers that call through a Smart View automatically.
- **Workflows.** Multi-step follow-up sequences that combine email, SMS and task reminders.
- **Custom fields, tasks and call outcomes.** The details that make the system fit your process.

## Why recruitment agencies use Close for business development

The bottleneck in agency sales is usually not the call itself, but everything around it. Finding the number, opening the record, reading the notes, logging the result, setting the follow-up. Multiply that by a full call block and half the morning is gone.

Close is designed to shrink that gap:

- The **Power Dialer** calls through a Smart View without you clicking into each lead. When someone picks up, the record is already on screen.
- Calls, emails, texts and meetings are **logged automatically**, so the history is there when you call back.
- **Call Tasks** sit in the Inbox with everything else that needs doing, and Close can mark them as done once a call with that contact has taken place.
- **Call outcomes** let you tag a connected call ("meeting booked", "no current need", "call back") so you can build lists on top of them.

If you are still comparing tools, our overview of the [best CRM for recruitment agencies](/en/blog/best-crm-for-recruitment-agencies) puts Close next to the alternatives.

## How to set up Close for agency sales

The tool only works as well as the structure behind it. Here is a setup that fits most agencies doing permanent or temporary recruitment.

### 1. One Lead per company, Contacts for every decision maker

Create a Lead for each target company and attach the people you would actually call: the hiring manager for the role, the HR or talent lead and, in smaller businesses, the owner or managing director. Avoid creating a separate Lead per person at the same company, or your history gets split across records.

### 2. Custom fields that matter for BD

Keep it lean, only fields you will filter on. A useful starting set:

| Field | Type | Why it helps |
|---|---|---|
| Open role | Text | The vacancy you are calling about, your opener |
| Job source | Choice | Reed, Totaljobs, Indeed, LinkedIn, careers page |
| Role posted | Date | Lets you prioritise fresh vacancies |
| Location | Text | Manchester, Leeds, Chicago, Dallas and so on |
| Niche | Choice | Engineering, healthcare, trades, finance |
| Company size | Choice | Filters out companies too big or too small |
| Next step | Text | One line, written after every call |

### 3. Lead Statuses for the company, Opportunities for the deal

Use Lead Statuses to describe the relationship with the company and Opportunity statuses to describe a specific deal. A simple split:

- **Lead Statuses:** New, Contacted, In conversation, Client, Not now, Do not contact.
- **Opportunity statuses:** Meeting booked, Meeting held, Terms sent, Assignment won, Placement made, Lost.

Close ships with default opportunity statuses that you can rename and extend in the settings. If you want to think through what each stage should mean, our guide to the [recruitment sales pipeline](/en/blog/recruitment-sales-pipeline) defines them one by one.

### 4. Smart Views as your daily call lists

Instead of building a call list every morning, you save the filter once and it updates itself. Useful views for an agency:

1. **Fresh signals:** Lead Status "New", role posted in the last 7 days, your niche.
2. **Call backs due:** open Call Tasks for today.
3. **No answer twice:** contacted, no connected call yet.
4. **Meetings this week:** opportunities in "Meeting booked".
5. **Gone quiet:** clients with no activity for 60 days.

### 5. Power Dialer for call blocks

With the Smart View ready, start the Power Dialer and work through the list in one block. The Power Dialer keeps checking the Smart View for leads coming in or dropping out, so a lead that just got a meeting booked falls off the list without you doing anything.

Close also offers a Predictive Dialer that calls several leads at once and connects you only when a person answers. Close itself says it works best for teams rather than solo callers. In the UK, Ofcom treats silent and abandoned calls as possible persistent misuse, so check the rules before switching on any predictive dialling. This is not legal advice.

### 6. What a call from the dialer sounds like

The dialer saves time, but only if the first ten seconds are sharp. Open with the vacancy that is stored in your "Open role" field:

> "Hi {first name}, it's {your name} from {agency}. I'm calling about the {role} you're hiring for in {city} – that's still open, right?"

Then find out how urgent it is, pitch as a yes question, and go straight for a meeting:

> "If we put a couple of really strong candidates from your area in front of you, would you want to meet them, even if they come through an agency? Great – let's find a slot. How does tomorrow look, or does later today work?"

If you get a gatekeeper, keep it just as direct: "Hi {name}, it's {your name} from {agency}. Could you put me through to {full name}, please? I'll hold." More on this in our [recruitment cold calling script](/en/blog/recruitment-cold-calling-script).

### 7. Workflows for follow-up, not for everything

Workflows let you build multi-step sequences with email, SMS and task reminders. In agency BD they work best for the boring but essential parts: a reminder to call back in three days, a task to check whether the role is still live, a nudge when a meeting needs confirming. Keep the human call at the centre and let the Workflow make sure nobody is forgotten.

## Common mistakes when agencies set up Close

| Mistake | What happens | Better |
|---|---|---|
| Importing the old CRM as it is | Thousands of dead records in every view | Clean before migrating, keep only active companies |
| Twenty custom fields | Nobody fills them in | Five to eight fields you actually filter on |
| No Smart Views | Consultants build lists by hand every day | One view per daily routine |
| Lead Status and Opportunity mixed up | Pipeline reports make no sense | Status = company, Opportunity = deal |
| No next step after calls | Leads go cold | Call outcome plus a Call Task every time |
| Workflows instead of calls | Lots of activity, few meetings | Workflows support calls, they do not replace them |

## Where the leads come from

A CRM is only as good as what goes into it. Smart Views and dialers make a team fast, but they cannot make an outdated list relevant. That is why the strongest setups feed Close with companies that are hiring right now, with the role and the decision maker already attached.

Two of our services fit right here. [SalesPower](/en/services/salespower) sets up Close for recruitment agencies: data migration, pipelines, custom fields, automations, Smart Views and onboarding for the team. [LeadFlow](/en/services/leadflow) delivers companies that are currently hiring in your niche, with the decision maker, straight into your CRM every day, so your "Fresh signals" view is never empty.

## Key takeaways

- Close is a sales CRM built around calling and follow-up, which suits the business development side of an agency rather than candidate delivery.
- Structure first: one Lead per company, decision makers as Contacts, Lead Status for the relationship and Opportunities for the deal.
- Smart Views replace manual call lists and feed the Power Dialer directly.
- Every call ends with an outcome and a next step, ideally a Call Task.
- Workflows handle reminders and follow-up, but the phone call stays at the centre.

## FAQ

### Is Close a good CRM for recruitment agencies?
Close works well for the business development side of an agency, meaning finding, calling and following up with potential clients. It is not an applicant tracking system, so most agencies use it next to their ATS rather than instead of it.

### Can you use Close alongside an ATS?
Yes. A common split is the ATS for candidates, jobs and placements, and Close for prospects, meetings and new client deals. Close offers an API and integrations such as Zapier, so data can be connected if needed.

### What is a Smart View in Close?
A Smart View is a saved lead filter that you can open with one click. Agencies use them as self-updating call lists, for example all new companies in their niche that have not been contacted yet, and the Power Dialer can call straight through them.

### What is the difference between the Power Dialer and the Predictive Dialer in Close?
The Power Dialer calls one lead after another from a Smart View, so you do not have to click into each record. The Predictive Dialer calls several leads at once and connects you only when someone answers; Close says it works best for teams rather than individual callers.