Recruitment processes take time and energy to get right, and as the job market and hiring processes evolve, so too does the need to revamp the recruitment process. Data-driven recruitment can help companies refresh their recruiting efforts to find top-tier talent and ensure high-quality hires. Matching technologies and manual data collection help to gather and analyze data, but it all comes down to how companies use this data to make decisions. Keep reading to learn more about data-driven recruitment and how you can integrate data collection and analysis into your company's current recruitment process.
What is data-driven recruiting?
Taking a step beyond the usual screening and hiring process, data-driven recruitment is an objective approach to sorting through potential candidates for a role. It helps to take the guesswork out of determining whether a candidate is a quality hire and can highlight issues with the current hiring process. Some numbers that companies analyze when it comes to data-driven hiring efforts include:
- Time to fill
- Applicants per opening
- Cost per hire
- Offer acceptance rate
- Candidate job satisfaction
- Selection ratio
This isn't the only data companies review when it comes to the hiring process. There are numerous other metrics to measure and analyze, which can vary from industry to industry.
How does data-driven recruiting help with hiring?
So, how does data-driven recruitment help when it comes to hiring? Here are some key benefits to consider that might sway you toward implementing this in your recruitment strategy:
Increases quality of hires
Tracking your new hires helps to show your team what makes for a quality candidate. Analyzing their performance, satisfaction, and manager's satisfaction can help recruiters tailor their approach to finding candidates. Adjusting their approach can then help them better sort through the numerous candidates they may get for a role to find that top-tier talent.
Establishes average hiring timelines
Knowing how long a role might take to fill can help your team better allocate budgets and workloads. For example, knowing how long it takes on average to fill the company's management roles can help you more effectively distribute management tasks to those who can complete them. It also helps the recruiting team space out its budget.
Enhances candidate experience
A well-put-together recruiting and hiring process speaks toward a company's culture and work environment. Streamlining the hiring pipeline helps to enhance the experience for candidates and increases the likelihood of them getting through the process to the onboarding stage. Candidates value their time, and having to spend time on repetitive tasks or lengthy application processes may discourage them from completing their application. This can result in you missing out on quality candidates.
Highlights hiring issues
Tracking metrics that directly relate to the application and hiring process can emphasize where there might be issues or bottlenecks in the process. For example, it might show if there's a problem with the way the questions are asked in the application questionnaire. It can also show if there are accessibility issues with the process, causing candidates to have trouble navigating the various buttons and forms.
"Data-driven recruiting efforts provide the guidance needed to enhance a company's hiring efforts."
How to implement data-driven recruitment
Getting started on tracking recruitment data is half the battle. Here's how you can integrate data-driven recruitment into your existing hiring process to start measuring and improving your company's recruiting efforts:
Decide what metrics to measure
Since there are seemingly endless things to measure, determining what metrics to track can help you gather the data that you think is going to give you the most insight into the hiring process. Different industries can benefit from tracking different types of recruitment metrics, so researching the metrics that are unique to your market can help you narrow down which performance indicators to move forward with.
A common metric that many companies analyze is the quality of hire, which is a complex metric that indicates whether someone is a good candidate for the role. Since this specific metric takes time to gather and has some subjective components, it's a good idea to have a collective measure of short-, mid-, and long-term metrics. Balancing your subjective and objective metrics can help provide a more accurate picture of the recruitment process. Here are some other metrics to consider:
- Time to fill: This metric refers to the number of days it takes to find and hire a new candidate from the time of the initial job posting until they accept an offer. This can help a company gauge the demand for this type of role in the market and understand how long the hiring process takes.
- First-year attrition: Also known as new hire turnover, this metric measures how many employees leave their role before their first full year. This can be a factor in candidate satisfaction and quality hire metrics.
- Percentage of open positions: Comparing the number of open positions to the total number of positions within a department or the organization can help recruiting teams determine the market demand for these roles. This metric can also help guide the creation of a talent acquisition strategy.
- Application completion rate: To gain insight into the company's application process, this metric can help recruiters understand how complex their application process is. It can also help them determine if there are accessibility issues with the current process.
Regularly collect data
Just as important as choosing what data to track is collecting the data. Deciding how often to collect this data can help you gain important insights into your short-term and long-term recruitment goals.
However, it's important that you don't wait too long to start collecting your data, as it can provide valuable insights sooner than you think. Conversely, collecting data every day can slow down your analysis efforts and overload your recruitment team's daily tasks. Collecting data at the close of each week, bi-weekly, or at regular points during the recruitment efforts for each role are some intervals to consider when setting up this timeline.
Establish benchmarks and analyze data
In alignment with your recruiting goals are benchmarks, which help to give a quick rundown of how close your company's recruiting efforts are to a goal. These benchmarks will vary based on your company and industry. Once you've set your benchmarks, you can start analyzing data. To streamline this part of the process, you can rely on matching technology. This can help with evaluating candidates and new hires to see how well they align with a role, which can provide more predictive numbers surrounding what success looks like in your organization.
Use data to adjust the hiring plan
Once you've analyzed the numbers, you can start making educated decisions on changing (or keeping) parts of your recruitment process. This doesn't mean you have to change the whole recruitment process. Finding small fixes to help your current recruitment process can keep your recruitment team happy, enhance candidate satisfaction, and still get you the results you want.
Re-evaluate as needed
After implementing these changes, it's crucial to monitor them to ensure they help the recruiting process. Sometimes the right fix for an issue might be the second or third resolution, and identifying that early on can help you enhance the hiring process sooner. Remaining flexible with the recruiting process can help the team adapt to change and find the method that works best for the company.
Data-driven recruiting efforts provide the guidance needed to enhance a company's hiring efforts. It peels back the layers of the company's current practices to help the hiring team discover what's working and what might be hindering their recruitment efforts. Investing in matching technology can help companies gather data and make quality decisions even faster.
More tips for recruiting and retaining top talent:
Understanding current employee retention trends can help you discover if you need to adjust your employee retention strategy to reduce your first-year attrition rates.
Want a larger candidate pool to recruit from? Expanding your search to include remote hiring allows you to find top-tier talent even if they're not in the same zip code.
