The best and most watertight business decisions are made after careful research and thorough analysis of relevant data – and your hiring process should be no exception.
Assume nothing.
In the past, recruitment teams relied on luck and intuition as much, or more so, than data to drive candidate selection. Of course, they considered resumes, references and information and insight gleaned from interviews, but even armed with all that, they could only assume their hiring methods were effective. Data-driven recruiting has been a game changer, as it uses tangible facts and statistics to inform decisions from candidate selections to final offers and the overall development of hiring plans.
Data-driven recruiting helps improve quality of hire, as well as:
- Budget allocation: One example is using data to track source of hire and determine which channels bring in the most qualified talent.
- Productivity and efficiency: Recruiters can see if there are specific ways they can accelerate time-to-hire, such as tracking how many emails hiring team members exchange with candidates.
- Applicant conversion rates: This might involve reviewing your application form to see if you need to tweak any questions or redesign your page.
- Diversity: You may want to look at candidate demographics to help eliminate any unconscious discrimination against protected groups.
- Hiring forecasting and benchmarking: For instance, recruiting yield ratios can show how many applicants you typically need to make a single hire. If you have too few, you may want to consider sourcing or re-advertising the role.
How to Incorporate Data Into Your Hiring
Here are some steps toward more data-driven recruiting:
- Choose the right data and metrics. Select a few important metrics to track. These commonly include quality of hire, cost-per-hire, time-to-hire, source of hire, candidate experience scores and job offer acceptance rates, although different companies may pay attention to different types of data. Meet with senior managers to learn which information matters most to them and to your organization as a whole.
- Collect data efficiently. Make the process as painless as possible. Use your applicant tracking system and other software to your advantage. Additional options include Google Analytics and surveys.
Once you’ve collected the right data, act on it. Data is valuable. Here are two examples of common recruiting issues and how data can help you address them:
- Time-to-hire is too long: Pinpoint which stages of your recruitment process are lagging. Are your bottlenecks occurring in sourcing? Screening? Interviewing? Using the right data will help you make the right adjustments.
- Offer acceptance rates are too low: If this is the case, you might want to develop more competitive offers, communicate more effectively with candidates throughout your hiring process, or work to improve your overall candidate experience.
Venteon’s specialized subject matter experts can help you develop your overall strategy, as well as all the steps involved in effective, data-driven recruitment, so you can focus on running your business. Contact us today to learn more.