Recruiting and staffing agencies prospect two audiences by phone: companies that need people, and people who need a job. The two calls have different slots, different openers and different legal rules, and the agencies that win treat them as two separate playbooks run on one dialer. Here is both, with numbers from our analysis of 1,000,000 B2B cold calls in France.

Why the phone still runs the recruiting business

A recruiter's product is a conversation. The client wants to know if you understand the role; the candidate wants to know if the job is real. Neither happens over an InMail.

The economics are brutal, though. A placement takes dozens of client conversations and dozens of candidate conversations. On a manual dialer, a consultant spends most of the day dialing and waiting. In our data, 11.3% of B2B dials connect on average. With parallel dialing, reps get 5x more conversations from the same hours. That is the difference between 8 and 40 real conversations in a day, and in staffing it is the difference between a placement and no placement.

Playbook 1: client acquisition calls

Who and when

Your buyer is HR, a hiring manager or, in SMEs, the founder. In our benchmark, HR picks up most around 1pm, founders around 10am. Across all personas 4pm connects at 15.8% versus 9.8% at 8am. So: founders at 10am, HR after lunch, everyone else at 4pm. Do not call HR at 8am; they are in onboarding.

The signal

Recruiting has the best trigger in B2B: the job posting. A role open for 30 days or reposted twice is a company in pain. A company opening a second site or announcing growth is a company about to post. Build the daily list from those, not from a sector export.

The opener

65% of reps open by explaining what they sell, and those calls book 2-3% of the time. Trigger openers reach 7-10%. For a recruiter: "Hi Julie, Benoit from [agency]. I saw your maintenance technician role in Nantes has been open since September." Then a "how" question: "How is the search going on your side?" Questions starting with "how" lift conversion by 190% in our data.

The objections

"We work with an agency already." "We recruit internally." "Send me your terms." Before answering any of them, ask "What do you mean?" That reflex lifts conversion by 197%. The answer to "we have an agency" is usually "and the role is still open", said kindly.

The ask

Not "can I send you candidates?". A 15-minute call to understand the role well enough to send two profiles by Friday. Specific, small, dated.

Playbook 2: candidate and temp-worker calls

Who and when

Employed candidates answer outside office hours: lunch, after 6pm, and early morning for shift workers. Temp workers and active candidates answer during the day and answer fast; in our experience their pickup rates sit well above B2B averages, because the call is good news.

The opener

Say the job in the first sentence. "Hi Karim, Benoit from [agency]. I have a forklift role in Lille starting Monday, 12-week mission, and your profile matches." Candidates hang up on vague recruiters; they stay for a real job with a real date.

The qualification

Three questions, not twenty: availability, mobility, one skill check. Everything else goes in the meeting.

The retention call

Temp workers register with several agencies. The one that calls them the day a mission ends keeps them. Build a weekly "missions ending" list and call it on Thursday.

Persistence applies on both sides. In our experience, most connects happen within the first three attempts. One voicemail is not a no; three unanswered attempts at different slots are.

The legal basics in France

• Client calls (B2B). Legitimate interest under GDPR, with information and an easy opt-out. Professional mobile numbers are usable for B2B prospecting when the person is contacted in their professional capacity.
• Candidate calls. Candidates are individuals. You need a lawful basis (legitimate interest for a role that matches their public profile is defensible), you must inform them where their data came from within a month under GDPR Article 14, and you must honor opt-outs immediately.
• Consumer-style cold calling to people with no professional link to the role is a different regime since the 2026 opt-in rules for B2C canvassing. Recruiting calls about a matching job are not sales calls, but keep the purpose clean.
• Recording. Inform at the start of the call, state the purpose, set a retention period.

Not legal advice. Have your DPO sign off on the candidate script once and reuse it.

How Sonik approaches recruiting and staffing calls

Staffing and recruiting firms in France run Sonik, and the fit is volume plus two lists. Parallel dialing gives consultants 5x more conversations; the candidate list and the client list run as separate campaigns with separate slots.

Signals from the CRM (dormant clients, contacts who changed jobs, closed-lost accounts that posted a role again) feed the client playbook. In our data a call to a known contact that opens with "How have you been?" succeeds around 10% of the time versus 1.5% for a standard cold open, and recruiting CRMs are full of known contacts.

Conclusion

Two audiences, two playbooks, one dialer. Clients at the persona's slot with a job-posting trigger; candidates with the job in the first sentence. This week, build a list of roles open for more than 30 days in your region and call the hiring managers at 1pm with the role's name as your opener.