Using data to improve your recruitment processes
It’s no secret that companies are compiling and analyzing a lot of data to reveal patterns, trends and behaviors in order to target their customers and prospects more efficiently. Anywhere you go online (and even offline, think of loyalty cards for instance), you leave footprints used by companies to fine-tune their communication towards you. Data is now more than ever part of every business decision, and recruitment should be no exception!
Data is actually a big chance for recruiters, by implementing a data-driven approach you will get a better understanding of your recruitment funnel. Where does the traffic comes from? What are your top performing pages? How do talents behave in my digital recruitment ecosystem? By asking yourself the right questions and analyze data to get the answers, you will be able to spot potential problems and solve them to improve the whole recruitment process.
Technically, it is not difficult to get relevant data. First you have to ask your webmaster or your web agency to tag all the pages dedicated to recruitment to be able to use the Google Analytics tool. Then, if possible, choose a recruitment platform or ATS which gives you metrics about what happens once talents have applied (unseen applications, time to hire, number of candidates in process…). Last but not least, you should compile data about the number of employees, people who left the company, employees who have moved internally, demographics, etc.
4 key indicators to monitor as a recruitment professional…
#1 Number of applications in process
The number of applications in process could be considered as a global indicator to assess the efficiency of your recruitment funnel. The goal of your digital HR ecosystem is to attract talents, convert them by showing you are the right employer and make it easy for them to apply. So if you have just a couple of open positions and a lot of applications in process, it seems that everything is working pretty well. As opposed to this situation, having a lot of open positions and really few applications in process probably means that there is room for improvement.
#2 Time to hire
Thanks to the number of applications in process, you have an idea on how your recruitment funnel is performing. But it doesn’t give you any information on what happens next! Once visitors have applied, it is critical to act quickly and keep them informed on a regular basis so that they remain motivated to join your company. A (too) long time to hire might indicate that there are bottlenecks in the recruitment process and put you at risk of losing the perfect match along the way.
#3 Career pages and job descriptions visits
How many people are visiting my career pages and job descriptions? How long do they stay on the pages? Where do they come from and where do they go afterwards? All of this will help you determine what are the most efficient referrals (and boost them to bring even more visitors) and to see if your career pages and job descriptions content is engaging and appealing to your visitors.
#4 Percentage of visitors applying after reading a job description
This is a pretty interesting indicator to see whether or not your job descriptions are appealing and if the content is consistent with the job title. In addition to the conversion rate itself, you should check where your visitors are going once they have read your job descriptions. According to the LinkedIn Global Talent Trends 2016 report, 59% of talents first have a look at your company website before they apply, meaning that a visitor leaving your career environment to go to the website might be a good thing!
…and other metrics to go the extra mile
Even if you will already be able to spot many potential issues thanks to the indicators described here above, there are dozens of other metrics you might check to get a full understanding of your recruitment funnel. For instance you can monitor the number of applications you receive compared to the number of relevant CVs you get for every position to see whether or not the job descriptions really reflects what you are looking for. You can have a look at the number of unseen applications you have to make sure you don’t leave anyone behind and provide a good candidate experience. You can check the number of CVs you get on a monthly basis to have an idea of your team’s workload. You can look at the percentage of accepted offers and try to find out why the others have been declined.
Benefits of a data-driven approach are terrific. Thanks to the valuable insight you will get, you will be able to take the right decisions (and measure their impact) to get the most out of your digital recruitment ecosystem. This is how you will attract more talents, convince them that you are the right employer and provide them a state-of-the art candidate experience.
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