The 1.5% Problem
Most agencies are actively engaging just 1.5% of their database at any given moment. When I share that number with healthcare staffing leaders, the response is usually a mix of recognition and discomfort. They know the number feels right, even if they've never measured it precisely. They know there are thousands of candidates in their ATS that no one has contacted in months — sometimes years.
The question I always ask next is: why?
In almost every case, the answer comes back to the same root cause: incomplete candidate profiles. When a recruiter opens a record and it's missing location preferences, shift availability, compensation expectations, and current certification status, they can't make a confident outreach decision. So they move on to the next record, or they default to sourcing new candidates from scratch rather than investing time in profiles that might be dead ends.
The candidates aren't disengaged. The data is.
Clean Data Powers Warm Outreach
There's a meaningful difference between cold outreach and warm outreach, and most of it comes down to relevance.
Cold outreach says: "We have opportunities that might interest you." It's generic, it ignores everything the candidate has previously shared, and it signals that the recruiter either doesn't remember their conversations or doesn't have access to that information.
Warm outreach says: "We have a 13-week CVICU contract in Phoenix starting November 4th — I remembered you mentioned you were open to Phoenix and wanted a critical care assignment. All-in package is around $3,400 a week." It demonstrates that the recruiter paid attention, that the opportunity is genuinely relevant, and that the relationship has continuity.
The conversion rates between these two approaches aren't close. And the difference isn't recruiter skill — it's data.
"Candidates don't want to be recruited. They want to be known. Clean data is what makes that possible at scale."
Ember's AI model addresses this by automatically enriching candidate profiles with information that already exists in the system but was never structured. Recruiter notes, call log summaries, email threads — these contain a huge amount of detail about candidate preferences, past conversations, and objections that informed recruiters track but that never make it into queryable ATS fields.
When that information is extracted and structured, every recruiter on the team has access to the full context of a candidate's history, not just what happened to be entered into the profile manually.
Consistency Builds Relationships and Results
Candidate engagement isn't just about the first message. It's about every touchpoint over the course of a relationship that might span multiple assignments and several years.
When a recruiter picks up a conversation and references what was discussed three months ago, it signals professionalism and builds trust. When they reach out with an opportunity that ignores previously stated preferences, it does the opposite — and it erodes the confidence a candidate has that working with this agency is worth their time.
Consistency requires information. It requires knowing that a candidate mentioned they prefer days-only assignments, or that they had a difficult experience with a particular client type, or that they're planning to take two months off after their current contract ends. That information should travel with the candidate profile and be visible to any recruiter who touches that relationship.
Clean, enriched profiles make that possible. Scattered notes and incomplete records make it nearly impossible.
What Changes With Ember: A Six-Step Implementation Playbook
For agencies looking to address the engagement gap systematically, here's a practical framework:
Step 1: Identify engaged candidates. Start with the subset of your database where there's been some recent activity — a call, a message, an application — even if engagement has lapsed. These are the warmest starting points.
Step 2: Review the conversation history. Ember surfaces the relevant context from previous interactions automatically. Before any outreach, recruiters should understand what's been discussed, what concerns were raised, and what the candidate's situation was at the last point of contact.
Step 3: Create warm outreach templates. Generic templates have their place, but the most effective outreach references specifics. Build templates that pull in candidate-specific details — market preference, specialty, compensation range — to personalize at scale.
Step 4: Set engagement goals. Define what successful re-engagement looks like. A response? A scheduled call? An updated availability status? Clarity on the goal shapes what metrics you track.
Step 5: Track what works. Which outreach approaches produce responses? Which candidate segments re-engage most readily? This data improves every future campaign.
Step 6: Refine based on feedback. Candidate responses — and non-responses — are information. Adjust targeting, messaging, and timing based on what the engagement data tells you.
From 1.5% to What's Actually Possible
There's no ceiling on what candidate engagement can look like when the data is clean and the outreach is relevant. Agencies using Ember consistently report engagement rates that substantially exceed their historical baseline — not because recruiters are working harder, but because they're targeting the right candidates with the right information at the right time.
The 1.5% problem is real. But it's also solvable. It starts with recognizing that the barrier isn't effort — it's infrastructure.