A recruiter sends a strong shortlist to the contact who called in the vacancy. A week passes without an answer. It turns out that contact only passed on the request: the manager who decides works at another site, the person who signs the terms is in procurement, and the candidate profiles should never have gone to the general HR address. Nobody in the team knew, because the client record held five names and no roles. This article explains why every client contact in your Applicant Tracking System needs a recorded role: what goes wrong without roles, which roles to record, how account roles and vacancy roles work together, who may receive what, what to do when a contact changes jobs, how the approach differs per segment and how to check with your own data whether roles are kept up to date.
Contact roles matter in every segment, in different ways. Recruitment agencies work with hiring managers, HR contacts and buyers at the same client. Staffing desks need the site or shift contact who confirms bookings and approves hours. Secondment firms deal with assignment managers who are not always the person who signed the contract. Executive search firms report to a board member or owner while working with HR on the process. In-house recruitment teams treat their own managers as clients and need to know who approves, who interviews and who decides. In every case the question is the same: does the record show who does what, or does it depend on the recruiter who happens to know the account?
What goes wrong without recorded roles
- Shortlists go to a contact who cannot decide, so the submission waits while the real decision-maker never sees it
- Feedback requests reach the wrong person and stay unanswered
- Terms are agreed with someone who is not authorised to sign them
- Invoices and timesheets go to the hiring manager instead of the administration contact
- A colleague who takes over the account has to ask the client again who is who
The result is slower vacancies, frustrated clients and an account that only works as long as one recruiter stays involved.
Which roles to record
Agree a short, fixed list of roles and use it on every client account. A practical list:
- Decision-maker — approves the hire and has the final say on the candidate
- Hiring manager — gives the brief, reviews profiles and gives feedback
- Interviewer — takes part in interviews and records an outcome
- HR or recruitment contact — coordinates the process, contracts and onboarding on the client side
- Terms signatory — is authorised to agree and sign the terms of business, often in procurement or management
- Invoicing contact — receives invoices and handles purchase order numbers and payment questions
- Site or assignment contact — confirms shifts, start details or day-to-day matters during an assignment
One person can hold several roles, and a role can be held by more than one person. Use a fixed list rather than free text, so you can filter and report on roles, and record the date a role was last confirmed.
Account roles and vacancy roles
Some roles belong to the account as a whole, such as the terms signatory and the invoicing contact. Others differ per vacancy: a client may have one decision-maker for finance roles and another for operations. Record account roles on the client record and vacancy roles on the vacancy itself, ideally as part of the structured brief. When a new vacancy comes in, ask who decides, who gives feedback and who interviews before sourcing starts, and record the answer together with the approval. The owner of the vacancy on your side is then always paired with known contacts on the client side.
Who receives what
Roles decide where information goes. Send candidate profiles only to contacts who have a role in the vacancy, and only after the candidate’s consent for the submission. When a client prefers to see anonymised profiles first, record which contact receives them. Send feedback requests to the hiring manager or interviewer with a reply deadline, and send the response deadline for a submission to the person who can actually answer. Agree the terms of business with the recorded signatory, and send a weekly progress report to the contacts who asked for it. This keeps candidate data with the people who need it and nowhere else.
When a contact changes or leaves
Client contacts change jobs, take leave or move to another department. When that happens, do not delete the contact: mark them as no longer active at the client, keep the history and record who takes over each role. Check open vacancies for roles that are now empty and give each a next action date to confirm the new contact. A former contact who moves to another company is a relationship worth keeping, so record the new employer on their contact record, taking any off-limits agreement into account. Confirm roles once or twice a year, for example during an account review, and update the confirmation date.
Differences per segment
Agencies usually deal with several hiring managers per client and need vacancy roles to keep submissions and feedback apart. Staffing desks rely on site and shift contacts who confirm bookings at short notice, and on an invoicing contact for hours and invoices. Secondment firms record the assignment manager next to the contract signatory, so that end dates and extensions are discussed with the right person. Executive search firms record the board member or owner who mandates the search and keep confidential mandates visible only to the search team. In-house teams record managers, interviewers and approvers per vacancy, so the same internal people are not asked the same questions every time.
Let the system help
Much of the work around contact roles repeats and suits automation: requiring a decision-maker and a hiring manager before a vacancy moves to sourcing, suggesting the account roles when a new vacancy is created, sending submissions and feedback requests only to contacts with a matching role, flagging roles that have not been confirmed for a long time and creating a task when a contact is marked as no longer active. An artificial intelligence helper can suggest a likely role from an email signature or summarise earlier conversations with a contact before a call. The recruiter confirms the role with the client; artificial intelligence does not replace recruiters and does not decide who represents the client.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Names without roles — the client record lists contacts, but nobody can see who decides
- Roles in free text — every recruiter writes something different, so filtering and reporting are impossible
- One contact for everything — briefs, profiles, invoices and terms all go to the same person
- Deleting former contacts — the history disappears together with a relationship worth keeping
- Roles never confirmed — the record shows how the account looked a year ago
Questions teams ask
- Do we need roles for small clients with one contact? — Yes; record that one contact holds all roles, so it is clear when that changes
- Who records the roles? — The account or vacancy owner, at intake and whenever the client tells you about a change
- Can one person be decision-maker and interviewer? — Yes; record both roles
- What if the client will not say who decides? — Record that the decision-maker is unknown and ask again at the next contact moment
- How do internal user rights relate to this? — Contact roles describe the client side; user roles and access rights describe your own team
Check it with your own data
Count from your own records, per team and per segment: how many active clients have a decision-maker, terms signatory and invoicing contact recorded, how many open vacancies have a decision-maker and hiring manager, how many roles have not been confirmed in the past year and how many contacts are marked as no longer active while still holding a role. Compare the time to first feedback on submissions sent to a recorded decision-maker or hiring manager with submissions sent to other contacts. Discuss these figures in your weekly pipeline review and report the number of accounts and vacancies behind each figure. Do not compare with industry averages; your own trend is the number that matters.
A practical start
- Agree a fixed list of client contact roles
- Record the account roles for your active clients, starting with the largest accounts
- Ask for the decision-maker and hiring manager at the intake of every new vacancy
- Send profiles, feedback requests, terms and invoices only to the matching role
- Confirm roles at least once a year and mark former contacts as no longer active
Recorded roles, the right person every time
A client account is more than a list of names. Record a role for every client contact, separate account roles from vacancy roles, send information only to the right role, keep roles up to date when people change jobs and check your own figures. Explore the product or book a demo — we show how client contacts, vacancies and the pipeline work together in BoldATS for your segment.