Do you remember walking to the Parent-teacher meetings? Its purpose was to appreciate things done right. Moreso, it was to show progress and point out where we went wrong. But how many of us would use those evaluated answer sheets and feedback as motivation to improve and do better? Very few. Those who did, performed exceedingly well going ahead. The scenario is similar when recruitment is recurring. You use records and track recruitment metrics to improve your hiring.
Recruiters using a data-driven recruitment approach can significantly reduce costs and boost efficiency. The best way to make a process efficient is by responding to the data. Insightful recruitment metrics can help you determine where you are lagging. Then, based on the same, you can figure out ways to improve it.
What is data-driven recruiting?
Data-driven recruiting is a foolproof approach to hiring better candidates. You can gather data throughout the hiring process. You can track how candidates flow through the recruiting funnel using quantifiable data and metrics. Based on your recruiting needs, you can analyse the data and customise it to make informed hiring decisions, from planning to attracting candidates to hiring and retention.
What data and metrics should you measure?
Unlike traditional recruitment that relied on intuition to make hiring decisions, today, softwares and recruitment analytics have transformed how hiring is done.
With a data-driven recruitment process, recruiters have mature analytics in place to hire good candidates faster and significantly minimise their recruitment coast.
Speed-based recruitment metrics
Identify stages that take more time. Upsider research shows that 60% of the recruitment time is spent sourcing candidates. Identify the best channels and strategies to reduce the time spent sourcing candidates. Other metrics to study include:
- Time-to-hire: It measures the time taken to process and hire candidates. From the time the recruitment process starts until an ideal candidate is hired. It gives the recruitment team a check on the scope for improvement.
- Job offer acceptance rate: The offer acceptance rate ranges from 30% to 90%. It depends on your ability to close the offer, how well your compensation aligns with the market and the efficiency of your overall recruitment process.
Quality-based recruitment metrics
Quality-based metrics can help you find suitable candidates. Maintaining quality in sourcing candidates and further processing would ensure good candidate experience, timely onboarding and healthy retention.
- Application completion rate: It is the number of drop-offs during the application process. If more applicants leave without completing or submitting an incomplete application, you must identify and improve the candidate experience. Possible fixes could be the interface quality, length and complexity of the application process.
- Source of hire: It can help you determine the top recruitment channels. You can track it by tagging each candidate with their application source. Alternatively, you can do it on recruitment softwares like PyjamaHR. You can view the source insights to determine the effective channels.
- Candidates per hire: It compares the number of candidates sourced, screened, and interviewed and the number of successful hires in that period. This metric suggests how many candidates you need to process to get one hire. Further, it will help you determine the cost of hiring.
- Retention: A high retention rate would mean a well-developed recruitment strategy. Revisit the metrics to see how long the candidates stay with your company on average. Poor retention suggests issues with:
- Candidate selection
- Onboarding
- Work-life balance
- Working conditions
- Remuneration
Cost-based recruitment metrics
Tracking cost metrics and optimising them can help find suitable candidates by spending the least amount of money.
- Cost per channel: It measures the money you spend sourcing candidates using different channels. The channels would generally include:
- Company website
- Employee referrals
- Job boards
- Job fairs
- On-campus recruitment
- Social media
- Recruitment agencies
- Print advertisement
- TV and radio advertisement
You can do a cost analysis to determine the efficiency of each channel to figure out which one works for you.
- Cost per job board: Money spent on job boards and respective output can help determine which job sites most of your potential employees are searching for jobs.
- Cost per applicant: The cost for sourcing candidates across channels divided by the number of applicants is the cost per applicant. High cost per applicant and a lower candidate conversion suggest you need to improve your recruitment strategies.
- Cost per hire: Cost per hire measures the money spent on hiring new candidates. It includes, how much money was spent:
- As salaries of the recruitment team
- In advertising to source candidates
- On job boards
- Assessment
- For Recruitment softwares
- On Recruitment agency
How will data-driven recruiting help you hire right?
The scope of making mistakes will narrow down. You will have a hiring process in place which is:
- Efficient – You can work on each metric and note down gaps to improve – time to hire, quality and the hiring cost.
- Predictable – With quantifying reports, you can forecast your recruitment success.
- Successful – With data and metrics in place, you can better decide on how much of what resources will be required to hire successfully.
Benefits of data-driven recruitment
Using data, you can determine what changes will positively impact your hiring process at different stages.
- Improved candidate sourcing: You can look into past recruitment records to find reliable sources that consistently deliver quality candidates. Accordingly, you can invest more in those sources.
- Improved candidate experience: By analysing the data of your hiring process, you can identify the candidate’s pain points. Later, you can work on the specific areas for an improved candidate experience at multiple stages. For example, candidate feedback is a key indicator for improving the candidate experience. Other metrics include less number of candidates turning up for assessments, interviews and a low job offer acceptance rate.
- Reduced hiring costs: The cost incurred during the hiring process can help you understand the mistakes at various stages. For example, relatively higher costs on a specific channel, job board, or salaries to the recruitment team and lower acquisition would mean optimisation in recruitment is needed.
- Lower new hire turnover: A high new hire turnover means most of your new hires leave the job shortly after joining. Probably, they were misinformed about the job role, duties and responsibilities. Explain the potential hires well regarding the expectations, role, duties and responsibilities. Make them feel welcome and do meaningful work from the first day.
You can use the data-driven approach to make your recruitment efforts yield better results. With the PyjamaHR applicant tracking system, you can gather, store and organise data efficiently. You can make smarter decisions and address the issues faster and better. Work on the metrics element by element for an overall efficient hiring process.
