Find out they're unhappy in week two, not week eleven
Every placement gets check-ins at the points where things actually go wrong — the first day, the end of the first fortnight, and before your rebate period expires. Drafted for you, so aftercare stops being the thing that gets dropped whenever the desk is busy.
Nadia Osei — Wexley Group, started 14 Jul
Rebate ends 12 Oct
Day 1
First-day check-in — sent, replied same day
Week 2
Settling-in call — sent, no reply
Week 4
Manager check-in with Alan Brightwell
Week 8
Candidate check-in before rebate window closes
Week 12
Rebate expires — placement secure
She answered on day one and went quiet at week two. That is the pattern that precedes a resignation, and right now nothing on the desk notices it.
Works with
- Google Calendar
- Gmail
- Outlook
- Google Sheets
- Slack
It works from your placement record and your calendar — start dates, rebate terms and who the manager is. No ATS is needed, and the ones that exist publish no triggers anyway, so this runs as a scheduled sweep against dates you already hold.
The chore
How this goes right now
Aftercare is the first thing to go. Not because anyone thinks it's unimportant — every consultant will tell you it's how repeat business happens — but because it is the only task on the desk with no deadline attached. A client chasing a shortlist is urgent. A candidate who started three weeks ago and hasn't been spoken to since is not urgent right up until the moment they resign, at which point it is the most urgent thing in the building and also too late.
The economics are brutal in a way that's easy to forget when the invoice has already been paid. A placement that falls over inside the rebate period doesn't just cost you the fee — you refund money you have already recognised, spent and in many cases paid commission on. Then you rerun the search for nothing, for a client whose confidence in you has just taken a hit, while the candidate you placed is now unemployed and blames you at least partly.
And the warning signs are almost always there. Someone who replied warmly on day one and then goes quiet. A start date that moved twice. A manager who described the role differently to the candidate than they did to you. None of these are hidden — they're just not in front of anyone, because nobody's job is to look at week four of a placement that closed a month ago.
The difference
Same relationships, without relying on a quiet week
The consultants who do aftercare well aren't more diligent. They just have a system that survives the fortnight where everything goes wrong at once.
Try it
Walk through it yourself
This is the actual shape of the workflow — the same trigger, the same steps, the same draft waiting for your say-so. Click through it.
Keep placed candidates warm
Weekly aftercare sweep, Monday 09:00
Reads start dates and rebate terms from your placement record and works out who is due a check-in this week. A sweep is the honest shape here — a placement's second week isn't an event anything publishes, it's a date you have to be watching.
What it does
Work out who's due, and where they are in the rebate window
9 live placements inside their rebate period. 4 due a check-in this week. Nadia Osei is at week 4 with 6 weeks of rebate left.
Google SheetsCheck how the last few check-ins actually went
Nadia replied warmly on day one, nothing at week two. Two others replied positively last time. One placement's manager raised a training gap a fortnight ago.
GmailConfirm nothing has already been arranged
No call booked with Nadia. A review with the Wexley manager sits on Thursday — the week-4 manager check-in can be raised there instead of separately.
Google CalendarDraft what fits each one, and flag what needs a voice
3 check-in emails drafted. Nadia's is not sent as an email at all — a second silence after an engaged start is flagged for you to phone.
Gmail
Draft email — nothing has been sent
- To
- alan.brightwell@wexleygroup.example
- Subject
- Nadia — four weeks in
Hi Alan,
Nadia's been with you a month now, so I wanted to check in from your side rather than assume no news is good news.
How is she settling into the team, and is she picking up the platform work at the pace you'd hoped? If there's anything that isn't quite landing, it's much easier to sort at four weeks than at four months.
I've got our review on Thursday anyway, so no need to reply separately if you'd rather cover it then.
Best,
Send the 3 check-ins and add Nadia to your call list?
These are relationship emails, so they're worth a glance — a placement where you know something specific happened deserves a sentence about it. The manager-facing ones tend to need the lightest touch and the candidate ones the most.
Sent, with the one that needs a call flagged
The check-ins go out from your mailbox. Nadia goes on your list to phone, because a candidate who engaged and then stopped is not a candidate you email a third time. Responses come back in next week's sweep, and anything that reads as a genuine problem is raised rather than filed.
Aftercare that survives a busy week.
It drafts the check-in and reminds you when a call is the right answer instead.
How it works
What it's actually doing
Watching dates you already recorded and making sure the conversation happens while it's still cheap to have.
- 1
- Google Sheets
- ExExcel
Tracks every placement against its rebate window
Start date, rebate length and where each person is in it. The last check-in is deliberately timed before your liability ends, not after.
- 2
- Gmail
- OuOutlook
Asks both sides, separately
Candidates and hiring managers describe the same first month very differently, and the gap between the two answers is usually where the problem is.
- 3
- Gmail
Reads the pattern, not just the calendar
Someone who replied and then stopped is treated differently from someone who has never replied. One is a change in behaviour; the other is just how they are.
- 4
- Slack
- WhWhatsApp
Escalates to a call when an email won't do
There's a point where more emails actively make it worse. At that point it stops drafting and tells you to pick up the phone.
It remembers. The relationship is still entirely yours.
This is the most human task on the desk and the automation is deliberately thin: it knows who is due and drafts a starting point. Everything that makes aftercare valuable — noticing the hesitation in a reply, knowing this manager is difficult, deciding to just ring them — stays where it belongs.
Step one
It drafts
Step two — you
You read it and approve
Step three
Only then does it send
It never reports a candidate to their employer
What someone tells you about how they're finding a new job is said to their recruiter in confidence. It is never forwarded, summarised or hinted at to the client, and there is no setting that does that.
Silence becomes a call, not another email
After a missed reply it stops drafting and asks you to phone. Emailing a third time is how you turn a slightly unhappy placement into one who thinks you're not listening.
It doesn't interpret how anyone is doing
It notices that a reply pattern changed. It does not conclude that somebody is unhappy, and it never rates, scores or assesses a placed candidate's performance — that's a judgement for people who've spoken to them.
Nothing goes out unread
Every check-in waits for you. These are the emails where one clumsy line does more damage than sending nothing at all.
Setup
What setting this up involves
- 1
Connect
- Google Sheets or Excel, holding placements, start dates and rebate terms
- Gmail or Outlook, so check-ins come from the consultant who placed them
- Google Calendar, to spot client reviews already booked
- Slack, for the flag when something needs a call rather than an email
- 2
Tell it how you work
- Your rebate or guarantee period per client, since they differ
- The check-in points you want — day one, week two, week four, pre-expiry
- Whether the manager gets asked at the same points or different ones
- When to stop emailing and escalate to a call
- Where a referral or testimonial ask belongs in the sequence
- 3
Then it runs
About 30 minutes, once
The data is already in your placement sheet. Most of the half hour is choosing your check-in points, and day one, week two, week four and two weeks before rebate expiry is a good default to start from.
Edge cases
Where it's careful, and what it won't do
What it handles
A start date that moved
Every check-in is anchored to the actual first day, not the one originally agreed. A deferred start that shifts the whole sequence is the most common way aftercare silently goes wrong.
A candidate who engaged and then went quiet
Treated as a change worth noticing rather than as an unanswered email. It stops writing and puts them on your call list, because that pattern is the one that precedes a resignation.
Several placements with one manager
Four people placed into the same team don't generate four separate check-in emails to the same person in one week. They're grouped, or spaced, so you don't become the thing they dread.
A rebate period that's nearly up
The last check-in lands before your liability ends, not after. That timing is the entire commercial point — a wobble found in week eleven of a twelve-week rebate is still a wobble you can do something about.
What it does not do
Tell the client what the candidate said
Confidence runs one way. Nothing a placed candidate tells you is passed to their employer, in any form.
Judge how anyone is performing
It tracks whether conversations happened, not how they went. It doesn't score, rate or assess the people you've placed, and it forms no view about them.
Send anything unreviewed
Every message waits for you. On this task in particular, an email that reads as automated is worse than no email at all.
Keep emailing a quiet placement
Two attempts, then it hands you a phone call. Persistence by email past that point stops being care and starts being noise.
Time back
One prevented fall-through covers the year
- Time back
- 1–2 saves a year
- Spent on
- Fees you keep, and clients who come back
- What it costs
- $19 / monthStarterplan — see what’s included
How that’s worked out: Based on a desk making 40–60 permanent placements a year, where two or three typically fall over inside the rebate window and at least one of those was visibly wobbling weeks earlier. A single refunded fee is usually a five-figure swing once you count the rerun search and the commission already paid, which is why this page is measured in saves rather than hours.
Fair questions
The questions agency owners ask first
Aftercare emails feel like exactly the thing you shouldn't automate.
We'd agree if it were sending them, and it doesn't. What's automated is the remembering — knowing that Nadia is at week four, that her rebate closes on 12 October, and that she answered on day one and went quiet since. That's clerical work that currently competes with a live vacancy for your attention and reliably loses. The email itself is a draft you read, edit and send, and where the situation calls for a voice it doesn't draft anything at all.
Won't checking in this often be annoying?
Four touches across a twelve-week rebate period is roughly one a fortnight during the only period where anyone is genuinely working out whether they've made a mistake. The frequency is yours to set, and the grouping rules exist precisely so a manager who took four of your people doesn't get four separate emails in a week. Most candidates read a check-in at week two as somebody caring, not as a nuisance.
Our consultants say they already do this.
Some of them will, for the placements they remember and in the weeks that aren't busy. The straightforward test is to pull your last twenty placements and see how many got a week-four contact — most desks that run that check find it's under half, and skewed toward the clients they like. This isn't a claim that your consultants are lazy; it's that aftercare has no deadline, and tasks without deadlines lose to tasks with them.
More off the same desk
Other things that keep falling off the list
Chase contract extensions
Live assignments are tracked against their end dates, so the extension conversation happens with six weeks of runway instead of six days.
Re-engage dormant candidates
Your database stops being a graveyard — people you've already met are surfaced against live roles, with the reconnect drafted from your own history.
Chase hiring manager feedback
Every interview with no feedback after 48 hours gets a nudge drafted to the client, and you get one list of what's outstanding across the desk.
Send weekly client updates
A per-client summary of what moved, what's waiting and what you need — drafted Friday morning from the week's real activity.
Collect compliance documents
Every starter's paperwork tracked in one grid, with the chases drafted — so you find the gap three weeks out, not the night before.
The same aftercare elsewhere
FAQ
Questions worth answering properly
When do the check-ins happen?
At points you choose, defaulting to day one, week two, week four and a fortnight before your rebate period expires. That last one is deliberate — it's the last moment where discovering a problem still leaves you able to do something other than write a cheque.
Does the client see what the candidate tells us?
Never. Candidate responses stay with you, and nothing said in a check-in is forwarded or summarised to their employer. Someone telling their recruiter that the first month has been rocky is confiding in you, and treating that as reportable would end the usefulness of ever asking.
What if a placed candidate doesn't reply?
It depends on their pattern. Someone who has never replied gets one more attempt at the next check-in point. Someone who was engaged and has gone quiet gets no more emails at all — that's flagged for you to phone, because a change in behaviour is worth a voice.
Can it ask for referrals and testimonials too?
Yes, positioned where they actually work — after a check-in that came back positive, rather than as a standalone ask. A happy candidate at week eight is the single best source of referrals a desk has and the one most consistently never asked.
Does it handle contract placements as well as permanent?
It can, though the shape is different — a contractor's risk is the assignment ending rather than a rebate expiring, which is really the extensions task. Most desks run this for permanent placements and use extension tracking for the contract book.
What if we place several people with the same manager?
They're grouped or spaced so that manager doesn't receive four near-identical emails in one week. It's the fastest way to make a good client stop reading your messages, and it happens easily when each placement is tracked separately.
Stop refunding fees you could have saved
Point it at your placement sheet and set your rebate terms. This week's check-ins are drafted and waiting on Monday.
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