How to sell to Procurement leads at Recruiting companies
Procurement leads in recruiting companies are primarily measured on cost savings and supplier performance. They respond to outreach that clearly outlines how your solution can reduce hiring costs or improve the efficiency of their staffing processes. Demonstrating an understanding of their specific challenges, such as fluctuating talent demands, can lead to a productive conversation.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 562 recruiting company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high turnover rates
- budget constraints
- inefficient hiring processes
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent layoffs or hiring freezes
Filter your target list for companies that have recently announced layoffs or hiring freezes. These events often lead procurement leads to seek new staffing solutions to optimize costs. Use news aggregators or industry reports to pinpoint these companies.
- 02
Analyze current vendor contracts
Research the existing vendor relationships of your identified leads. Look for companies that are nearing the end of their contracts or have expressed dissatisfaction with their current staffing solutions. This information can be found through procurement databases or LinkedIn insights.
- 03
Highlight cost-saving opportunities
Craft your email to emphasize how your service can reduce hiring costs or improve the quality of hires. Use specific metrics or case studies from similar companies in recruiting to support your claims, ensuring they are relevant to the lead’s current challenges.
- 04
Address common objections upfront
Prepare to counter objections such as 'we're happy with our current vendor' by offering a free consultation or trial period. This approach can help lower the perceived risk of switching to your service, making it easier for them to engage.
- 05
Follow up with timely insights
Schedule a follow-up email or call within a week of your initial outreach. Include industry insights or recent trends in talent acquisition that may impact their procurement strategy. This positions you as a knowledgeable partner rather than just a vendor.
Can recruiting companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 562 recruiting companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 20.2% of 1–10-person companies against 75% of the largest — 55 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Optimize your hiring costs
- Improve your staffing efficiency
- Reduce turnover rates now
Questions
- Why do procurement leads in recruiting ignore cold outreach?
- Procurement leads often ignore cold outreach due to the overwhelming volume of pitches they receive. Many emails lack personalization and fail to address their specific pain points, making them less likely to engage. Additionally, they may be focused on existing vendor relationships.
- What factors influence procurement decisions in recruiting?
- Procurement decisions in recruiting are influenced by cost efficiency, quality of service, and the ability to scale staffing solutions based on fluctuating demand. Leads prioritize vendors who can demonstrate a proven track record of delivering value and flexibility in their offerings.
- How can I make my outreach relevant to procurement leads?
- To make your outreach relevant, research the specific challenges faced by procurement leads in recruiting. Tailor your messaging to highlight solutions that address common issues like high turnover or budget constraints, and provide insights that resonate with their current needs.
- What timing is best for reaching out to procurement leads?
- The best timing for outreach is often at the beginning of the fiscal year or after major hiring events, as procurement leads may be reassessing their vendor relationships and budgets. Additionally, reaching out after significant industry changes can present opportunities to discuss new solutions.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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