Recruiting agency calling playbook: call blocks, cadence and KPIs

What this playbook covers

A recruiting agency’s phone work is three different motions wearing one headset: screens that turn applications into submittals, development calls that keep requisitions flowing in, and intake calls that make the search match the job. This playbook structures all three into a repeatable week, with the hygiene and cadence rules that keep candidates answering and clients engaged. It assumes a three-line browser dialer on your own Telnyx numbers, a human on every answered call, and recordings with after-call AI summaries on every connect.

List hygiene before anything rings

The screen queue is built every morning from overnight applications, newest first, with role and source on every row. Your internal DNC list applies to everything. Quiet hours are per candidate: the nurse who worked a night shift should not get a 9 a.m. call, and the candidate in a different time zone gets their own window. Attempt caps keep a strong applicant from being called six times in a week because two recruiters exported overlapping lists, which is the classic agency failure.

Candidate numbers are personal cell phones almost without exception, and the TCPA’s restrictions on autodialed and prerecorded calls to wireless numbers apply regardless of the fact that no sale is being pitched, see 47 CFR 64.1200. Human-dialed lines with a recruiter talking are the honest fit. Stop requests are honored the same day and logged, because recruiting communities are small and word travels.

The calling day in blocks

Screen block, 9:00 to 11:00. The overnight queue, newest first, three lines. Two lines feed voicemails while one connects; the recorded drop is polite, role-named and free of confidential detail. Target every application under 48 hours contacted, dispositioned and summarized.

Client development block, 1:00 to 2:00. The account list: hiring managers who placed last year, HR contacts with open headcount, the manager who complained about ghosting. The call asks one real question: what does this quarter look like. Outcomes are dated: “Client meeting booked” with a day, “Hiring paused until Q3” with the quarter named, “Filled internally, check next quarter” as a future event.

Callback block, 4:30 to 6:00 or the evening window candidates named. Evening requests get the window they asked for. Silver-medal re-entries run here too: the candidate who took a days offer in spring is the first call when the days requisition opens, with the original screen summary in front of the recruiter.

Intake calls, within 72 hours of a new requisition. Not a block, a deadline. The intake pins must-haves versus preferences, the compensation band the budget actually holds, the interview panel and the decision date. The summary becomes the search spec, and every later screen is measured against fields the client confirmed in their own words.

Attempt cadence candidates tolerate

Fresh application: attempt one inside 48 hours, attempt two next day at a different hour, attempt three within the week, then dated retry. A candidate who asked for evening calls gets evening attempts, full stop. Silver-medal candidates are called only on trigger: a matching requisition, a licensure date, a relocation date. The summary from their original screen carries the reason they were silver, so the re-entry call opens with their own context instead of a cold intro. Nobody gets a fourth voicemail in a month; the attempt caps enforce what the recruiter would enforce if they had the memory for it.

Dispositions both desks share

Submittal, screen passed awaiting review, screen declined, candidate withdrew, not reachable, client meeting booked, bad number, left voicemail, do not call. The client side adds “Hiring paused” and “Filled internally” with dates. Keep the shared list short and make the summary carry the nuance. A disposition is a routing decision; a summary is the record. When account managers and recruiters read the same words the same way, the handoffs stop dropping details.

Three lines and the AI summary workflow

Three lines mean the voicemail layer clears in the first twenty minutes of the screen block, and the recruiter spends the hour talking. After each screen, the AI writes the transcript and pulls structured fields: license and certifications, shift availability, compensation floor, notice period, reservation. The recruiter’s job is verification, not typing: check the pay floor and the name against the recording, fix what the transcript misheard, move on. Submittal notes built from verified fields survive offer stage; notes built from memory produce the failed offer and the awkward client call.

The same summaries feed the silver-medal system. A screen from March with “wants days, commute from south side, liked the facility” is the entire opening script for the October days requisition.

KPI ranges and the production benchmark

Judge the desk against ranges, then against its own trend.

• Dials per active calling hour: 70 to 100, median near 85 in DialBreeze production use, 3-line sessions, 90 days.
• Dials per recruiter day: 450 to 700, median near 600 for a full day of blocks.
• Person-connect rate: plan 12 to 22 percent, median 17.8 percent over the same window. Evening windows run differently than mornings; measure them apart.
• Screens completed per day: your own baseline from weeks one to four; published numbers would be invented because screen length varies by discipline.
• Application to first contact: under 48 hours on 95 percent of applications. This is the number that predicts fees.
• Callback promises kept: 100 percent. The process promise at the end of a screen is a commitment, and candidates grade agencies on it.

The production figures come from 37,411 dials and 9,367 AI summaries over 90 days to 2026-09-26, aggregate activity in DialBreeze operation, not customer results and not a promise about your queue.

Compliance notes for the recruiting desk

Human-dialed calls, quiet hours per candidate, stop requests honored same-day and logged, all-party recording consent respected with a disclosure where your states require it, and FCRA disclosure and authorization before any third-party background report, per the FTC’s employer guidance. Client development calls are business-to-business but the same recording rules apply. Keep the compliance program in written policy, review it with counsel where the states you call into are strict, and remember that no tool, including a dialer, decides what you may lawfully do. Nothing here is legal advice.