Those of you who have been in the recruiting and staffing industry for a while know that traditional recruiting used to be based on gut, intuition, and maybe a little luck. But managers rarely focused on the data – the numbers that make-up your firm.
Recruiters, hiring managers, or CEOs could only assume that their hiring methods were effective and profitable. But, today, we have data. We have a lot of it and we should use it.
The point to all this is that anyone can have and create their own data-driven recruiting process. But, first, let us explain what a data-driven recruiting process is.
According to Workable, “Data-driven recruiting is when you use tangible facts and stats to inform your hiring decisions, from selecting candidates to creating hiring plans. Recruiting teams that use data are more likely to be efficient, reduce costs and improve their hiring.” And, by using data in your hiring process, you increase the quality of your hire.
Data-driven recruiting also helps you:
- Allocate your budget
- By tracking the sources of your hires, you will be able to determine which recruiting channels bring in the most qualified candidates
- Increase your productivity and efficiency
- You will be able to see on average how many days it takes for you to make a placement from the day you received the job order, and you will be able to find the specific part in the recruiting process where you can speed up your time-to-hire
- Unearth hiring concerns
- You can decide if you want to tweak your recruiting questions or redesign your job posting based on conversion rates from the sources
- You will know more about diversity at your firm by looking at candidate demographics to see if you are unconsciously discriminating certain groups
- Benchmark and forecast your hiring
- The data can show you how many applicants you typically need to make one hire
- If you’re low on applicants then you can consider sourcing differently or change the way you advertise
- Make the case for recruiting process improvements to your boss/CEO
- Using the data to show that most of your candidates are found via referrals so you can pitch that you need to invest in a referral program
Despite everything we have shared with you, it’s important to know that the data won’t tell you why something happens. You may be able to get great insights by looking at the data, but you will have to interpret your findings.
The data tells you the “what” and helps indicate what your teams are doing well and what could be improved. But what you do to resolve your problems and how you utilize your data is up to you.
