What are Rules of Engagement?

Rules of Engagement (ROEs) are a codified set of rules that recruiting teams use to determine who, when, and if it’s acceptable to reach out to prospects. Usually, these rules include who should own a candidate, what actions trigger someone to own a candidate, and for how long that recruiter or sourcers ownership lasts.

Why should recruiting teams have ROEs?

Recruiting teams should have ROEs because it removes the guesswork from sourcers and recruiters about if and when it’s okay to reach out to a prospect or candidate someone else on their team has reached out to. In addition to removing the guesswork, it helps to limit things that would cause a bad prospect experience--for example, two recruiters/sourcers at a company reaching out within a few days of each other.

When should teams start to implement ROEs?

Generally, teams with more than 5 people should have Rules of Engagement, so that risk is limited. As a rule of thumb, it’s better to be too conservative and enact ROEs before you run into an issue than to wait until your team is too big and people are stepping on each other’s toes.

What are some examples of ROEs?

When people hear “Rules of Engagement”, they generally think it’s going to be some long list of things you shouldn’t do, but in most cases, simple is best. Here at Gem, we’ve talked to hundreds of teams about ROEs and have found that ROEs vary heavily across teams/industries/roles. Two frequent examples of ROEs we see are:

• ROEs based on one-way communication: Recruiter/Sourcer who sends outreach to a candidate maintains ownership for 30, 60, or 90 days from that outreach. No extensions to ownership if other actions are taken by the Recruiter/Sourcer.

• ROEs based on two-way communication: Recruiter/Sourcer who sends outreach to a candidate maintains ownership for 30, 60, or 90 days from that outreach. If a candidate responds, ownership is extended for another 30, 60, or 90 days. The cycle repeats as long as recruiter/sourcer maintains two-way communication with candidate.

How Gem can help

With Gem, we can implement a team’s rules of engagement automatically so when users are sourcing, they will see automatically if prospects are up for grabs, who owns the prospect (if applicable), and how many days of ownership are leftover. This allows recruiting teams to reduce the guesswork needed to figure out if they should reach out.

What do ROEs look like in Gem?

Rules of Engagement will show up in a candidate’s profile in the extension under the candidate’s name. Gem will include the owner, time until ownership ends, and colorcoding based on when that ownership is set to end.

What are the limitations of ROEs in Gem?

Currently, Rules of Engagement only works with any activity that happens in Gem (Sequences sent or manual touchpoints logged), excluding any activity like candidate responses, Greenhouse activity, or any activity that may happen outside of Gem (like one-off emails).