Candidate records that go out of date faster than most

Aug 29
3 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Introduction

An agency has forty thousand candidate records. A search for a specific skill returns two hundred people, of whom perhaps fifteen are still doing that work at that level, and three are contactable at the address on file.

The database looks like an asset and functions as an obstacle. Recruitment data decays faster than almost any other business information, because the facts that matter — role, salary, availability, willingness to move — change continuously and are only ever captured at one moment. Everything useful about a candidate record is a snapshot of a moment that has passed.

1. Candidate records that go out of date decay in specific fields

Know what actually rots.

Contact details, current employer, salary, seniority and availability all change within a couple of years. Skills and history do not, which means part of every record stays valid and the part you search on does not.

2. Record the date on everything

The single most useful discipline.

Every field should carry the date it was confirmed. A salary from four years ago and one from last month look identical in a record and mean entirely different things when you are shortlisting.

3. Prioritise the records worth maintaining

You cannot refresh everything.

The candidates in your active market, at the levels you place, who were credible when you last spoke. A focused list of a few hundred current records outperforms forty thousand stale ones for every practical purpose.

4. Update at every touchpoint

Maintenance as a habit rather than a project.

Every call, every submission and every rejection is an opportunity to confirm the current position. Consultants who update as they go keep a pipeline current at no additional cost, while periodic clean-up projects are announced and never finished.

5. Run a light refresh cycle

Systematic contact on a schedule.

A short message every several months asking whether anything has changed. Response rates are modest and the responses are exactly the information you need, and it costs very little to send.

6. Delete rather than keep everything

Counterintuitive but correct.

Records nobody will use, from markets you no longer work, degrade search results and create data protection exposure. In most jurisdictions you also cannot keep personal data indefinitely without a reason, which makes deletion an obligation rather than an option.

7. Know your retention obligations

A legal matter with real consequences.

How long you may keep candidate data, on what basis, what you must tell people and how you handle access or deletion requests. This varies by jurisdiction and it is not a formality; regulators do act on it.

8. Make the system quick to update

Friction is why data goes stale.

If changing a salary takes six clicks and a mandatory field nobody has, consultants will not do it during a busy call. The usability of the system determines the quality of the data far more than any instruction does.

9. Measure the freshness, not the size

Change what you report internally.

Records updated in the last twelve months, in your active market. Agencies quote database size as an asset and it means nothing; the count of current, contactable, relevant people is the figure that predicts submissions.

Remember that a candidate's own knowledge of their market is part of the record. Who moved, who is hiring, and which teams are struggling is intelligence that decays even faster than the personal details and is worth capturing while you are on the call anyway.

Conclusion

Treat freshness rather than volume as the measure of a candidate database.

Understand which fields decay and which do not, date-stamp everything so old information is visible as old, maintain only the records in your active market, update at every touchpoint rather than in periodic projects, run a light scheduled refresh, delete what you will not use, know your retention obligations because they are enforceable, remove friction from updating so consultants actually do it, and report records updated in the last year instead of total records held.