Over the past decade there have been tremendous advancements in the area of data tracking, and some of that growth has been in the recruiting space. Collecting data and examining the numbers to better understand your candidates is imperative in recruiting the right talent. Data-driven recruiting is collecting information on candidates, companies and processes, and then interpreting those metrics to improve the success of the overall hiring strategy.
With nearly 74% of hiring managers having felt as though they’ve hired the wrong person for a job, data-driven recruiting decreases that likelihood by taking the guesswork out of candidate selection to drastically increase the chance of finding the right person. It also allows employers to reduce the time and cost of hiring, eliminate bias or discriminatory practices from the process, as well as help plan for the future hiring.
Despite its many benefits, businesses are often unsure of how to take advantage of this methodology. To help, here are ways you can implement data-driven recruitment strategy into your hiring process:
Choose the right data to track
While KPIs and conversion rates are not new terms, there is likely much more data hiring managers could be extracting from metrics that already exist. Without tracking the right data, companies have the potential to waste innumerable hours and dollars in their hiring efforts and likely won’t understand the successes and pitfalls of their current hiring strategy.
That said, not every piece of data may be valuable to your company. To get a better sense as to what data would be beneficial to have, hiring managers should examine current practices, as well as meet with senior leaders to pinpoint any concerns, insights or goals for the current strategy.
Common data that hiring managers find valuable to track are:
- Speed-based metrics: This includes data such as time to hire, time to accept the job, time to approve the candidate, time for each stage in the hiring process, ect.
- Quality-based metrics: This includes the acceptance rate of submissions, source of hires, applications per job, candidates per hire, retention rates, time to get the new hire productive, candidate experience, ect.
- Cost-based metrics: This includes the cost per hire, applications per channel, talent pool growth, ect.
Collect and evaluate the data
It’s important that data is being collected effectively and efficiently, and one way to help with that is by utilizing existing or new recruitment software to track your metrics and speed up your hiring process. This will eliminate time-consuming manual tasks and store your data all in one place where it’s ready to be analyzed. There are also other ways to collect data, such as surveying candidates or using Google Analytics to find out the conversion rate of the number of people viewing a job posting compared to the number that applied.
That said, data won’t be able to tell you why something happened or how to solve the problem, which is why it is crucial to qualify your data after it is collected. By deriving meaning from the numbers, one can better understand what worked and what didn’t in past hiring processes.
Here are a few common results you may find from your data and how you can qualify them:
- Long time-to-hire rate: If it takes your company a longer time to hire than the industry average you may want to look to see if you’re facing any unnecessary hurdles when it comes to how you’re sourcing and screening candidates, as well as how your interview process can be sped up.
- Low offer acceptance rate: Job opportunities being rejected could mean that the offer was not competitive compared to the job market or that the candidate’s expectations for the role and compensation were not properly understood by the hiring manager.
- High turnover rate: This could mean that hiring managers are not properly communicating the job role to candidates, that there are failures in the onboarding process or that there is a poor corporate culture.
Determine how to act on the data
Data may tell you what is being done well and what the areas for improvement are, what you choose to know with that information is at your discretion. You may find that some of the metrics will warrant immediate changes to the hiring process, other information may inspire long-term changes for the organization.
To build on the aforementioned common data results, here are some ways you could address each issue:
- Improving long time-to-hire rate: You may choose to automate portions of your interview process, such as scheduling, to shorten the time-to-hire rate or you may consider using a recruitment agency that has a pre-existing pool of highly qualified candidates and processes in place to speed up the process.
- Increasing offer acceptance rate: By researching what the average salary and benefits package looks like in your geographic location for that type of role, it will ensure a competitive offer is being given to increase likelihood of accepting the job. It’s also important to establish the candidate’s expectation for the role and compensate early on to make sure it aligns with the company.
- Lowering turnover rate: An internal audit should be conducted to evaluate overall employee satisfaction and corporate culture. From there, changes to how the company works with its employees should be made, this could include creating an employee recognition program, offering bonuses, or creating a more flexible work environment to promote work/life balance.
Ultimately, data-driven recruiting allows hiring managers to know whether their hiring strategy is successful rather than assuming it is. It also provides the information needed for future hiring decisions, and part of planning for future hiring could include working with a recruiter to give you the competitive edge you need to compete for top talent.
LRO Staffing has years of experience tracking employment trends and assisting companies in using data-driven recruiting to make better hires. If you want to learn more about using data-driven recruiting to get the best candidates available, we encourage you to contact us today!
