Ever wondered how your competitors get those elusive last few marks on a tender?
The answer is probably that they provide really solid proof and evidence in their answers.
Theoretical answers are fine – by all means tell the Evaluator how you do it…..but make it more compelling by providing specific examples of where you have provided a similar service successfully before to back up your answers and give the client the confidence that you are the right agency to choose.
Evidence isn’t just about case studies – it’s about including facts and figures wherever you can. Examples might be:
- When providing information about your candidate attraction strategies, be specific about the methods you use, and demonstrate, for example, the % of placements generated by the most successful attraction channels (e.g. 57% of our successful candidates are generated through networking and referral).
- When writing about your recruitment process, provide evidence that your process predicts candidate performance accurately (e.g. 97% of candidates placed successfully complete the full duration of their assignment / probationary period).
- When providing information about service levels you work to, be specific about the KPI measures and your performance on previous contracts – and wherever possible demonstrating that you exceed the requirements of this tender – (e.g. over the last 3 years we have fulfilled 99% of vacancies given to us on an exclusive basis and 81% of vacancies where we are competing against one or more agencies).
- When asked about your account team, show how experienced and competent they are (e.g. the account team will be made up of 4 full time staff with an average of 7 years’ recruitment experience each and all of them are MREC qualified).
- When talking about your track record – don’t make grandiose claims (e.g. “we a leading provider within executive search in the financial sector” – instead, be specific – we have filled 28 executive level roles with salaries of £150k+ within the financial services sector in the last 12 weeks).
In a nutshell – you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors, many of whom will be trotting out the same tired generic information from their tender library! Build the client’s confidence by proving your credentials at every opportunity.
Sometimes you’ll be asked to provide case studies and specific examples, and this is where it can be more difficult to write down what you do without just sounding like “we were given a vacancy and we filled it”!
Case studies need to provide context and tell the story. They need to make the buyer feel “wow – this supplier has solved recruitment problems just like the ones we’re facing”. Case studies and examples need to outline the challenges your faced and how you overcame them – and most importantly they need to show the results achieved.
Here’s how we do it!
Case studies need to be specific, measurable and timed and this isn’t always easy to do, so we’ve pulled together a neat little trick to help pull together the necessary information by using 4 headings:
- Background – Keep this short and factual (include client information, location, sector, details of the requirement, number and nature of vacancies, service levels etc – be specific!)
- Challenges – Specify why the client’s requirement was particularly challenging (e.g. low salary, difficult location, skills shortage, timescale etc)
- Actions & Solutions – Detail what you did and specify how you did it. Don’t just say “we advertised”, but instead say “we placed adverts onto 6 jobboards within 2 hours of receipt of the requirement and received 178 applications within 3 working days”.
- Outcomes / Results – Again be specific – numbers, timescales and facts. Demonstrate that you achieved the required results (e.g. 18 drivers trained and started within 7 working days).
Naming Your Case Study
Make the title specific too, for example, instead of calling a case study “Case Study 1 -Volume Recruitment”, you might call it “Volume Recruitment – 85 Warehouse Vacancies Filled in 6 Days”.
Formatting Your Case Study
Make your case study relevant, impactful and easy to read. Use bullet points, bold text etc to make it really easy for the evaluator to find the relevant information. Above all – keep it short – ideally 1 page of A4.
Using Testimonials
Finally – make your case studies even more impactful by adding a short, relevant testimonial at the end, always remembering to include the client’s name, job title and company name.
