Maintaining relationships with candidates is one of the hardest elements of the recruitment process; however, a new survey shows that it’s also one of the most crucial.

CareerBuilder, in partnership with Inavero, recently surveyed 1,078 workers worldwide to find out just how long and intensive the job search process is for today’s candidates. According to the 2012 Candidate Behavior Study, 66 percent of job candidates said they thought about looking for a new job within six months before actively searching.

Throughout those six months, candidates are consulting multiple sources to research opportunities and potential employers. For example, 74 percent go on search engines like Google, 84 percent visit company websites, and 66 percent look at company Facebook pages. Again, this is just a handful of sources job candidates consult when considering a new job – before they even apply.

“These results tell us that candidate relationship management [CRM] is critical,” says Kassandra Barnes, Content and Research Manager at CareerBuilder. “If you want to keep your pipeline of talent engaged and interested in opportunities with your company, your talent acquisition strategy absolutely must include a CRM strategy.”

The key to an effective CRM strategy, Barnes says, is continuous engagement through multiple touch points. Good to know, then, that today’s candidates consult up to 15 resources when searching for jobs, providing employers multiple ways to connect with candidates. Of course, having so many options can also be a burden for time- and resource-strapped recruiters and hiring managers, who can only be in so many places at once.

Fortunately, there are also plenty of options when it comes to tools that help manage candidate relationships across multiple channels. CareerBuilder’s Talent Network , for example, is designed to help employers seamlessly integrate all of their CRM efforts – bringing together social media, SEO optimization, mobile recruiting, career site management and job distribution – as they increase their ROI.

Regardless of how employers choose to approach candidate relationship management, however, what’s more important than the fact that they do it.

Do these results surprise you? Do you have a CRM strategy?

All of these findings stem from the 2012 Candidate Behavior study, which you can learn more about at www.careerbuilder.com/candidatebehavior