When you dive into the world of recruiting metrics, you’ll inevitably encounter the “big three”: Quality of Hire, Speed of Hire, and Cost of Hire. While everyone knows these metrics, few understand the specific data needed to truly measure and improve them. This post breaks down the key data elements for each, helping you build a measurable, data-driven analytics strategy.
Beyond the Basics: Other Crucial Metrics
In addition to the “big three,” here are some other essential metrics you should consider:
- Recruiter Productivity: Track how your recruiters are performing.
- Candidate Responsiveness: Measure how quickly candidates respond.
- Candidate Engagement Scoring: Gauge a candidate’s level of interest.
- Process Satisfaction: Survey candidates, recruiters, HR, and hiring managers for feedback.
- Source of Candidates: Identify where your best talent comes from.
- Application Completion Rate: Monitor the percentage of applications that are fully submitted.
- Diversity: Analyze demographics by job family and location.
- Anomalies: Spot unusual trends or data points.
- Innovative Initiative Results: Evaluate the success of new recruiting strategies.
The Power of Human Intelligence: Why It Trumps AI
We’re often told to rely on artificial intelligence, but let’s not forget where AI comes from: humans. We’re building these tools, yet as users, we’re becoming lazy. We think we’re saving time and energy by not thinking, but what is that doing to our intelligence? Just like muscle, our brains need frequent exercise to stay sharp. Stop relying solely on AI and start using your own intelligence.
AI is built on predefined algorithms, but your intelligence is a free-flowing, unbound force. It has no business rules or limitations. The ingenuity of your thought can’t be replicated by any AI tool. Think about your business needs and let the data provide the answers. If the data isn’t giving you what you need, fix the data—not your intelligence. 🧠
Your Roadmap to Getting Started
Feeling a little overwhelmed? Start with a clear objective. Write down the metrics you want to analyze and begin with a manageable number, like the Cost of Hire, Speed of Hire, and Diversity metrics.
💰 Measuring the Cost of Hire
Take baby steps and focus on the hard cash you’re spending on each position. It’s usually easy to track. Start with advertising costs. Create a system in your ATS or recruiting folder to document every job board posting, including zero-cost ones. This allows you to derive other metrics later.
If your team is on board, try to document the number of hours spent on each position. This can be a real eye-opener, revealing bottlenecks and time-consuming steps. Even an approximate time recording is a valuable starting point.
⚡ Measuring the Speed of Hire
Most ATS platforms can track the duration between each step in your process. However, the biggest challenge is often a lack of timely and accurate documentation from users. This step should be part of every company’s recruiting DNA. If the data isn’t recorded correctly, all efforts to improve speed and efficiency will be wasted. You must measure your recruiting team’s documentation performance before you measure their speed.
Assuming your team is well-trained in using your ATS, the next thing to focus on are the stages. Do your stages reflect your actual process, or are you just using the default settings? Ensure your stages are self-explanatory and meaningful from both a process and metrics standpoint.
Once stages are defined, set realistic benchmarks for the duration of each stage, such as the time it takes to move a candidate from “New Applicant” to “Phone Screen.” Collect this data, but wait at least three months before you start analyzing it. This gives you sufficient data to slice and dice by job family, recruiter, department, or hiring manager.
💎 Measuring the Quality of Hire
The quality of hire can be subjective and difficult to assess, as there’s no one-size-fits-all methodology. To simplify, keep the process simple: evaluate every new hire with a quality score at three months, six months, and one year, then average the scores. If you already have a formal performance evaluation process, you can use those ratings.
Document these scores in your ATS with the candidate’s record. This ties back to your recruiting performance metrics and helps you make better future hires. If a high-quality hire leaves in less than a year, investigate separately to understand the point of failure.
Diving Deeper: Candidate Engagement and Diversity
With your top three metrics in place, the next focus should be on the Candidate Engagement Score (CES). While there are many resources on this topic, here’s a brief look at some often-overlooked elements.
To measure CES, you need specialized tracking mechanisms like surveys at multiple entry and exit points, and tools that monitor candidate responsiveness via email and text. It can get complex, so consider using one of the many available tools on the market. This allows you to focus on the analysis and content improvements.
Another key component is the application process itself. Not many tools track drop-off rates during the application. Make sure your ATS can capture this data, ideally at a page-by-page level. Assessing the incomplete application rate is a crucial step to improving CES.
Finally, consider a Hire and Non-Hire Demographic Analysis, similar to an Adverse Impact Analysis. This is often overlooked but can be incredibly useful. It provides a clear picture of your candidate pool’s diversity and can flag any implicit or explicit discriminatory practices across your organization.
Additional Key Metrics to Power Your Strategy
Beyond the foundational metrics, here are a few more data points that can give you a competitive edge.
🤝 Process Satisfaction
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Regularly survey candidates, recruiters, HR, and hiring managers to understand their experience with your recruiting process. This feedback is gold. Use tools like anonymous surveys to gather honest opinions on what’s working and what’s not. For example, a candidate survey might reveal that your interview scheduling process is confusing, while feedback from hiring managers could show a bottleneck in the approval stage.
🔎 Source of Candidates
Knowing where your best talent comes from is critical for optimizing your budget and efforts. Your ATS should track the source of every application—whether it’s a job board, employee referral, social media, or a career fair. Go a step further and connect the source to other metrics, like Quality of Hire and retention rates. For instance, if you find that employees sourced through your referral program have the highest quality scores and stay with the company longer, you know where to invest more of your resources.
📉 Application Completion Rate
A low application completion rate can signal a major problem. It’s a direct indicator of a frustrating or overly complex application process. Track drop-off rates at every stage of the application—from the first page to the final submission. If you notice a significant number of candidates dropping off at the “work history” section, it might be a sign that the form is too long. A higher completion rate means more qualified candidates in your pipeline and a better overall candidate experience.
⚠️ Anomalies and Innovative Initiative Results
Always be on the lookout for anomalies or unusual data points in your recruiting data. For example, a sudden spike in rejections for a specific job family or a significant drop in time-to-fill for a particular recruiter could be worth investigating. These data points can reveal a hidden problem or, more excitingly, a new best practice.
Similarly, every time you launch a new recruiting initiative—whether it’s a new sourcing tool, an employer branding campaign, or a change in interview stages—track its results. Did that new recruiting tool actually save time? Did the branding campaign increase the number of qualified applicants? By measuring the impact of your innovative initiatives, you can prove their value and make data-backed decisions about where to invest in the future.
